POTTS VILLE  FREE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 
POTTSVILLE,  PA. 

THOMAS  H.  SCHOLLENBERGER 
COLLECTION 

THE  BEQUEST  OF  HIS  SISTER 

MRS.  SARAH   R.  BARTHOLOMEW 


I. 


A    SAINT. 


IHM  *-—•»-§•£ 


^_  'm 


PISA. 


A    SAINT 


TRANSLATED    FROM 

cU 

PAUL  BOURGET'S  "  PASTELS.  OF  MEN" 


BY 


KATHARLXE    PRESCOTT    WORMELEY 


. 


ILLUSTRATED   BY   P.    CHABAS 


BOSTON 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS 

i895 


?Q 


• 


if 


Copyright,  1804, 
By  Roberts  Brothers. 


SJnibrrsitg  ^SJrrss : 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Pack 

Pisa Frontispiece 

"  Vigorously  washing-in   a  water-color  presentment 

of  the  woman  in  the  'triumph  of  death  '"  ...  9 

■  a  long  dinner-table  with  few  places  laid  because 

the  winter  season  has  not  yet  begun"      ....  ii 

'•The  door  opened  to  admit  a  couple" 19 

•  i    found  myself  ten   minutes  later   walking  along 

the  quay  with  this  stkanger" 25 

Monte  Chi  a  ro •     •  3S 

'These  are  the  quarters  which  I  give  to  guests"     .  44 

"Many  monks,  some  thinking  only  of  another  world"  46 

"  Having   lighted  the  little  wick,-  he  began  to  move 

the  flame  here  and  there  along  the  wall"     .     .  56 

"That's  a  very  fine  coin,  and  extremely  rare"    .     .  65 

"The    Abb£   saw    by    my    face    that    I    had   something 

important  to  say" 73 

"Grasping    both    the   young   man's    hands    affection- 
ately"    78 


54108 


A   SAINT. 

To   Madame  George  S.  R.  T. 

I  WAS  travelling  in  Italy  in  the  month  of 
October,  188-  with  no  other  object  than  to  get  rid 
of  a  few  weeks  in  again  seeing,  this  time  at  my 
leisure,  a  number  of  my  favorite  masterpieces. 
The  pleasure  of  a  second  impression  has  always 
been  to  me  move  vivid  than  that  of  the  first ; 
doubtless  because  I  have  ever  felt  the  beauty  of 
the  arts  as  a  writer,  —  that  is  to  say,  as  a  man 
who  requires  that  a  picture  or  a  statue  should, 
in  the  first  instance,  be  a  text  for  thought.  Not 
an  aesthetic  reason,  and  one  at  which  all  painters 
who  are  painters  indeed  will  scoff.  And  yet  this 
reason  alone  had  brought  me,  in  the  month  of  Oc- 
tober of  which  I  speak,  to  spend  a  few  days  at 
Tisa.  I  wished  to  live  over  again,  at  my  ease,  the 
dream  of  Benozzo  Gozzoli  and  Orcagna.  Here, 
in  a  parenthesis,  let  mu  say,  so  as  not  to  seem  in 
the  eyes  of  connoisseurs  too  ignorant  of  art,  that 


8  TASTELS    OF   MEN. 

I  call  by  the  name  of  Orcagna  the  painter  of 
the  "  Triumph  of  Death  "  in  the  Campo  Santo  of 
the  old  town,  knowing  well  that  modern  criticism 
questions  his  paternity  of  the  work.  But  to  me, 
and  to  all  those  whose  memory  cherishes  the 
admirable  lines  of  Pianto  on  the  tragic  fresco, 
Orcagna  is,  and  ever  will  be,  the  sole  author  of 
it.  At  any  rate,  Benozzo  has  not  lost,  through 
the  sceptical  and  fatal  criticism  of  catalogues, 
his  right  and  title  to  the  decoration  of  the  west 
wall  of  the  cemetery. 

"What  intense  sensations  have  I  net  felt  in  this 
little  corner  of  the  world,  remembering  ever  that 
Byron  and  Shelley  lived  in  the  ancient  Tuscan 
town,  that  my  dear  master,  M.  Taine,  has  de- 
scribed the  adjoining  spot  in  the  most  eloquent 
of  his  eloquent  pages,  that  the  lyrical  poet  Pianto 
came  here,  and  that  Benozzo  Gozzoli  himself,  the 
laborious  toiler  of  painted  poesy,  lies  buried  at 
the  foot  of  the  wall  on  which  his  frescos  are 
softly  fading.  In  that  enclosure  of  the  Pisan 
Campo  Santo,  on  the  sacred  earth  brought  thither 
in  pious  ages,  I  had  watched  the  springtide 
calling  the  pale  narcissi  into  bloom  at  the  feet  of 
the  black  cypresses ;  I  had  seen  the  winters 
shedding  light  flakes  of  snow,  melted  as  soon  as 
fallen  ;  I  had  felt  the  torrid  sky  of  an  Italian 
summer  weltering  above  that  shadeless  spot  with 
crushing  heat ;  and  yet  I  had  not  exhausted 
the  charm  of  it,  for  I  now  returned  there  in  the 


' 


"Vigorously  washing-in  a  water-color  presentment  of  the  woman 
in  the  'Triumph  of  Death.'  "  —  Page  9. 


A    SAINT.  9 

autumn  of  which  I  speak,  —  little  expecting  the 
moral  drama  in  which  this  visit  was  to  involve 
rue,  if  not  as  an  actor  at  least  as  a  deeply  inter- 
ested spectator,  though  somewhat  against  my 
will. 

The  first  episode  of  this  drama  was,  like  that 
of  many  others,  a  rather  commonplace  incident, 
which  I  nevertheless  relate  with  pleasure,  though 
it  has  but  slight  connection  with  my  tale.  It 
evokes  for  me  the  pleasant  recollection  of  two 
English  old  mnids.  During  my  visits  to  the 
Campo  Santo  I  had  noticed  this  couple,  who,  by 
reason  of  their  singular  ugliness  and  the  utilita- 
rian  oddity  of  their  clothes,  seemed  a  living  and 
caricatural  illustration  of  a  certain  poet's  tender 
address  to  the  dead  :  — 

"  Thou  bast  no  longer  sex  or  age." 

The  browner  of  the  two  (the  other  might 
possibly  pass  for  a  ruddy  blonde)  was  vigor- 
ously washing-in  a  water-color  presentment  of  the 
woman  in  the  "  Triumph  of  Death ;  "  the  one  who 
faces  you,  in  the  cavalcade  to  the  left,  with  her 
candid  eyes  and  her  sensitive  mouth,  —  eyes  and 
mouth  which  have  never  lied,  and  which  are 
never  forgotten  when  once  we  have  loved  them. 
The  worthy  Englishwoman  was  totally  devoid 
of  talent,  but  her  choice  of  this  subject  and  the 
conscientiousness   of    her   work    interested    me. 


10  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

Consequently,  as   these   spinsters   lived  at   my 
hotel,  I    had  somewhat  indiscreetly   yielded  to 
my  curiosity  so  far  as  to  look  for  their  names  on 
the  register.     I  found  that  one  was  named  Miss 
Mary  Dobson,  the    other   Miss   Clara   Roberts. 
They  were  about  fifty  years  of  age,  and  were  now 
making   that   tour    "abroad,"    as    they    call    it, 
which  thousands  of  their  courageous  colleagues 
in    celibacy    (forced   or    voluntary)    undertake 
annually  from  the  island  shores  of  Great  Britain. 
The   sisterhood   start  in  pairs,  in   threes,  some- 
times in   fours.     Behold   them   thus    alone   for 
fifteen   or   twenty  months  ;  installed  in  myste- 
rious  boarding-houses,   the  addresses   of  which 
are  known  and  transmitted  by  the  whole  free- 
masonry   of  travelling   spinsters ;  learning  new 
languages  in  spite  of  their  gray  hairs  ;  applying 
themselves   with  heroic  perseverance  to  under- 
stand the  arts ;  passing  through  evil  places  with 
their   purity,  which  is  that  of  the   angels,  un- 
tainted ;  ever  in  quest  of  an  English  church,  an 
English  cemetery,  and  an  English  chemist,  —  not 
to  speak  of  the  tea  which  they   never   fail  to 
prepare  after  the  British  fashion  in   the   depths 
of  Calabria  or  far  up  the  Nile  at  the  precise  hour 
they  are  in  the  habit  of  imbibing  it  in  their 
drawing-rooms  in  Kent  or  Devonshire.     I  have 
such  an  admiration  for  the  moral  courage  which 
lurks  behind  the  absurd  exteriors  of  these  curious 
beings  that  in  the  course  of  my  too   frequent 


?* 


"A  long-  dinner-table  with  few  places  laid  because  the  winter 
season  has  not  yet  begun."  —  Page  11. 


A   SAINT.  11 

vagabondizing  I  take  pains  to  enter  into  con- 
versation with  them,  —  all  the  more,  perhaps, 
because  1  have  discovered  that  the  passion  for 
facts  which  rules  their  race  makes  them  not 
infrequently  very  useful  to  consult.  They  are 
sure  to  have  verified  every  statement  in  the 
"uide-book  ;  and  whoever  has  wandered,  Baedeker 
in  hand,  through  a  remote  region  of  Italy,  will 
readily  admit  that  such  verifications  are  precious. 
Therefore,  on  the  third  evening  of  my  stay  at 
Pisa,  the  departure  of  certain  guests  having 
brought  my  place  at  the  table  d'hote  next  to  that 
of  the  two  old  maids,  I  began  a  conversation 
with  them,  quite  sure  that  they  would  not  reject  so 
good  an  opportunity  to  "  practise  their  French." 

You  now  see  the  stage-setting,  do  you  not  ? 
—  a  room  in  an  old  palace  transformed  into  a 
hotel  dining-room,  with  more  or  less  modern 
furniture,  the  ceiling  frescoed  in  lively  colors, 
a  long  dinner-table  with  few  places  laid  because 
the  winter  season  has  not  yet  begun.  On  the 
table,  swaying  in  their  brass  holders,  are  the 
fiaschi,  those  delightful  long-necked  flasks,  with 
their  bellies  wrapped  in  osier  and  filled  with  the 
wine  of  so-called  Chianti.  If  the  little  mountain 
of  that  name  supplies  enough  to  fill  all  the 
bottles  which  are  labelled  thus  it  certainly  must 
yield,  at  the  least,  a  harvest  a  week.  But  the 
false  Chianti  is  a  true  and  good  wine,  the  flavor 
of  which,  though  rather  sharp,    tastes    of    the 


12  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

grape ;  and  the  glow  of  it  colors  the  cheeks  of 
the  seven  or  eight  persons  who  chance  to  be 
stranded  for  the  time  being  around  the  table, — 
a  German  couple,  making  the  classic  wedding 
journey  on  this  side  the  Alps  ;  a  Milanese  mer- 
chant, with  a  face  both  sly  and  sensual ;  two 
Genoese  burghers  visiting  the  neighborhood,  and 
now  in  Pisa  to  meet  their  nephew,  a  cavalry 
officer.  The  latter  is  dining  at  the  table  d'hote 
in  captain's  uniform,  dashing,  jovial,  and  speak- 
ing in  loud  tones  with  the  rather  guttural  accent 
of  the  Riviera.  His  talk,  interspersed  with 
laughter,  gives  me  the  odyssey  of  his  parents,  in 
which  I  should  be  more  interested  if  Miss  Mary 
Bobson  had  not  suddenly  broached  a  subject 
which  roused  me,  passionate  quattrocentist  that 
I  am,  the  lover  of  frescos  and  paintings  on  wood 
before  the  sixteenth  century. 

Miss  Mary  was  the  darker  of  the  two  spin- 
sters, she  whose  water-color  brushes  had  so 
flattened  and  dulled  the  rude  design  of  the 
primitive  master ;  and  after  a  long  dissertation  on 
the  problem  as  to  whether  the  famous  "  Triumph  " 
was  to  be  attributed  to  Buonamico  Buffalmaco 
or  to  Nardo  Daddi  she  suddenly  addressed  me  as 
follows  :  — 

"  Have  you  been  to  the  convent  of  Monte- 
Chiaro?"  ' 

"  Do  you  mean  the  one  between  Pisa  and 
Lucca,  on  the  mountain  the  other  side  of  Ver- 


A    SAINT.  13 

ruca  ?  "  I  replied.  "  Well,  no  ;  the  guide-book 
says  it  takes  six  hours  to  drive  there,  and  for  two 
poor  Luca  della  Eobbias  and  a  few  pictures  of  the 
Bologna  school  which  is  all  they  mention  —  " 

"  What  is  the  date  of  your  guide-book  ? " 
asked  Miss  Clara,  sharply. 

"  I  don't  know,"  I  said,  a  little  embarrassed 
by  the  sarcastic  manner  in  which  that  mouth 
with  its  long  teeth  questioned  me.  "  The  fact  is 
I  have  a  superstition  about  keeping  the  same 
copy  that  I  used  when  I  came  to  Italy  for  the 
first  time,  —  rather  long  ago,  I  must  admit." 

"  How  French  that  is  ! "  returned  Miss  Clara. 

Instantly  I  understood  her  pre-Iiaphaelitism  ; 
it  was  nothing  more  than  one  form  of  vanity. 
However,  I  took  no  notice  of  the  international 
sneer,  as  I  might  have  done  by  simply  repeating 
the  remark  and  emphasizing  the  Britannic  ben- 
evolence of  it.  In  dealing  with  English  folk  of 
the  aggressive  species  silence  is  the  true  weapon, 
for  it  wounds  them  to  the  quick  of  their  defect. 
They  hunger  and  thirst  for  contradiction,  from 
the  combative  instinct  which  inheres  in  their 
blood  and  impels  the  race  to  every  form  of  con- 
quest and  proselytism.  I  therefore  bore  with 
the  magnanimity  of  a  sage  the  sharp  glance  of 
Miss  Clara's  blue  eyes,  which  challenged  to 
mortal  combat  the  whole  Gallic  nation,  the  more 
easily  perhaps,  because  Miss  Mary  interposed, 
remarking :  — 


14  PASTELS   OF   MEN". 

"  The  truth  is  they  discovered  at  Monte- 
Chiaro  about  two  years  ago  some  very  beautiful 
frescos  of  your  beloved  Benozzo,  as  fresh  and 
brilliant  in  color  as  those  in  the  Capello  Iiic- 
cardi  at  Florence.  He  was  known  to  have 
worked  in  the  convent,  and  he  was  also  known 
to  have  painted,  among  other  things,  the  legend 
of  Saint  Thomas.  That  calumniator  Vasari 
says  so.  But  no  trace  of  this  work,  which  the 
master  must  have  executed  about  the  time  of  his 
Pisan  frescos,  remained.  Now  see  how  things 
happen.  Pom  Griffi,  the  old  Benedictine  abbe* 
who  has  had  charge  of  the  convent  ever  since  it 
was  '  nationalized,'  ordered  a  servant  to  sweep 
down  a  spider's  web  in  a  corner  of  one  of  the 
cells  now  used  as  lodging-rooms  for  travellers. 
A  bit  of  plaster  was  knocked  off  by  the  broom. 
The  abbe*  sent  for  a  ladder  and  clambered  up, 
in  spite  of  his  three-score  years  and  ten.  I 
ought  to  tell  you  that  the  convent  is  his  idol, 
his  passion.  He  has  seen  it  peopled  by  two 
hundred  of  his  brethren,  and  he  accepted  the 
post  of  warden  after  the  decree  in  the  full  be- 
lief that  he  will  one  day  see  it  restored  to  what 
it  has  been.  His  sole  thought  is  of  the  time 
when  the  monks  will  return  and  find  the  ancient 
structure  preserved  from  degradation.  That  is 
why  he  consented  to  the  trying  service  of  giving 
board  and  lodging  to  tourists.  He  was  afraid  of 
an  inn  at  his  gates,  like  that  at  Monte-Cassin ; 


A   SAINT.  15 

he  could  n't  endure  the  idea  of  such  an  inn  close 
beside  the  convent,  with  American  girls  dancing 
every  evening  to  a  piano  —  " 

"  But  he  mounted  the  ladder,  and  what  then  ? " 
I  said,  to  cut  short  the  panegyric  on  Dom  Griffi. 
I  was  fearful  of  a  reactionary  end  in  some  bigoted 
Protestant  attack ;  and  in  fact,  Miss  Clara  did 
not  lose  the  opportunity. 

"  I  must  say,"  she  remarked,  profiting  by  the 
interruption.  "  I  should  never  have  believed, 
unless  I  had  known  Dom  Griffi,  that  a  man 
could  possibly  be  so  intelligent  or  so  useful  in 
a  priest's  garb." 

"When  he  mounted  the  ladder,"  said  Miss 
Mary,  "  he  scratched  off  more  of  the  plaster  very 
carefully.  First  he  found  a  forehead  and  eyes, 
then  a  mouth,  then  the  whole  face  of  a  Christ. 
All  these  Italians  are  born  artists ;  it  runs  in 
their  veins.  The  abbe  saw  at  once  that  he  had 
a  fresco  of  great  value  under  a  layer  of  plaster." 

"  Those  monks,"  interrupted  Miss  Clara,  "  found 
nothing  better  to  do  than  to  whitewash  the 
masterpieces  of  the  loth  century  and  hide  the 
decorations  of  the  old  masters  behind  their 
stucco  ornamentations  and  their  frescos  of  a 
depraved  style." 

"  Nevertheless,  it  was  the  monks  who  ordered 
those  very  decorations,"  I  said  ;  "  which  goes  to 
prove  that  good  or  bad  taste  has  nothing  to  do 
with  religious  convictions." 


16  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

"  Well,  naturally,"  replied  the  terrible  Eng- 
lishwoman, "  being  a  Parisian  you  are  sceptical." 

"  Let  me  finish  my  story,"  cried  Miss  Mary, 
by  which  I  perceived  that  she  was  something- 
more  than  pre-Uaphaelite,  she  was  kind  ;  which 
in  these  days  of  vagrant  sestheticism  is  rare. 
She  was  visibly  distressed  by  the  militant  incli- 
nations of  her  travelling  companion  as  directed 
towards  me.  "  Dear  Miss  Roberts,  you  shall 
discuss  that  subject  later, "  she  said.  "  The 
good  abbe"  pondered  how  he  could  clear  the  wall 
of  the  whitewash  without  endangering  the 
fresco,  and  this  is  how  he  managed  it.  He 
glued  a  cloth  to  the  plaster  and  let  it  dry  till  it 
held  firmly  ;  then  he  wrenched  cloth  and  plaster 
away  and  scratched  off  what  remained  inch  by 
inch.  It  took  him  months,  poor  old  man,  to  un- 
cover, first,  one  panel  on  which  Saint  Thomas  is 
represented  laying  his  finger  on  the  Saviour's 
wounds,  and  then  another,  where  the  apostle  is 
seen  at  an  audience  granted  to  him  by  the  King 
of  the  Indies,  Gondoforus  —  " 

"  But  you,  of  course,  don't  know  that  legend," 
said  Miss  Clara,  brusquely  addressing  me.  This 
time  I  would  not  give  her  satisfaction  by 
again  exhibiting  French  superficiary.  I  had 
read  the  legend  —  by  chance,  be  it  said  —  in 
Voragine  when  I  was  hunting,  I  must  admit,  for 
the  subject  of  a  tale  wanted  by  a  boulevard 
newspaper.     I  recollected  it  on  account  of  the 


A   SAINT.  17 

noble  symbolism  it  contains,  and  also  for  its 
exotic  character  which  gives  it  all  the  charm  of 
the  picturesque.  Saint  Thomas  being  at  Cesarea, 
our  Lord  appeared  to  him  and  ordered  him 
to  go  to  Gondoforus,  because  that  king  was 
seeking  for  an  architect  to  build  him  a  nobler 
dwelling  than  the  palace  of  the  Eoman  emperor. 
Thomas  obeyed.  Gondoforus,  then  on  the  point 
of  starting  for  a  distant  seat  of  war,  gave  him 
enormous  quantities  of  gold  and  silver  intended 
for  the  construction  of  the  palace.  On  his 
return  he  ordered  the  Saint  to  show  him  the 
work.  Thomas  had  distributed  the  treasure  en- 
trusted to  him  to  the  poor,  even  to  the  last 
penny,  and  not  one  stone  of  the  promised  palace 
had  been  laid.  The  king,  furiously  angry,  impris- 
oned his  strange  architect  and  proceeded  to 
meditate  as  to  what  were  the  most  refined  tor- 
tures with  which  he  could  punish  the  traitor. 
But  that  very  night,  behold,  the  spectre  of  his 
brother,  who  had  been  dead  four  days,  stood  at 
the  foot  of  his  bed  and  said  to  him:  "The 
man  thou  desirest  to  torture  is  the  servant  of 
God.  The  angels  have  shown  me  a  wondrous 
dwelling  of  gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones 
which  he  has  built  for  thee  in  Paradise."  Over- 
come by  the  apparition  and  by  the  words  which 
he  heard,  Gondoforus  hastened  to  fling  himself  at 
the  prisoner's  feet.  Thomas  raised  him  and 
said  :  "  Dost  thou  not  know,  0  King,  that  the 

2 


18  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

only  mansions  which  endure  are  those  which 
our  faith  and  our  charity  build  for  us  in 
heaven." 

"It  is  quite  certain,"  I  said,  after  referring 
(not  without  a  certain  malicious  complacency) 
to  the  foregoing  legend,  "  that  it  must  have  been 
a  very  interesting  subject  to  a  painter  passion- 
ately devoted,  like  Benozzo,  to  sumptuous  robes, 
complicated  architecture,  landscapes  with  illim- 
itable flora  and  chimerical  beasts  —  " 

"  Ah  !  "  cried  Miss  Dobson,  pushing  aside  in 
her  enthusiasm  the  dish  of  purple  and  green  figs 
which  the  waiter  was  offering  to  her, —  a  waiter, 
by  the  bye,  with  cheeks  that  were  stiff  with  a 
six  days'  growth  of  beard,  and  a  threadbare  black 
coat  opening  to  view  amazing  pink  coral  buttons 
stuck  into  a  ragged  shirt-front,  —  "  you  can't 
imagine  the  magnificence  of  the  Gondoforus  in 
the  fresco  at  Monte-Chiaro,  —  a  sort  of  Moor,  with 
a  sreen  silk  robe  embroidered  in  relief  with 
gold,  yellow  boots  with  spurs,  also  gold — such 
liquid  coloring !  so  perfectly  preserved,  so  fresh  ! 
Just  think!  these  layers  of  whitewash  must  have 
been  put  on  the  wall  about  the  end  of  the  lGth 
century  ;  consequently,  there  's  not  a  blemish  in 
the  painting,  no  retouching ;  there  it  still  is  in 
the  cell  where  it  was  painted  ;  which  used  to 
be,  I  am  told,  the  oratory  of  the  bishops  who 
visited  the  convent.  It  covers  the  whole  of  one 
large  wall  and  the  space  above  a  window." 


"The  door  opened  to  admit  a  couple." —Page  19. 


A   SAINT.  19 

The  conversation  had  reached  this  point  and 
I  was  just  asking  Miss  Mary  for  a  few  points 
as  to  the  ways  of  communication  between  Pisa 
and  the  convent  (for  I  was  drawn  there  past  all 
power  of  resistance  by  this  revelation  of  an  un- 
known work  by  my  favorite  master)  when  the 
door  opened  to  admit  a  couple,  already  known, 
no  doubt,  to  the  English  spinsters,  for  Miss 
Mary  cast  down  her  eyes  with  a  blush,  while 
Miss  Clara  remarked  to  her  in  English  :  — 

"  Why,  it  is  that  Frenchman  and  the  woman  we 
met  in  Florence  at  the  trattoria.  How  extraor- 
dinary that  a  respectable  hotel  like  this  should 
receive  such  persons." 

I  looked  myself,  and  saw  a  couple  taking 
their  seats  at  one  of  the  small  tables  which  sur- 
rounded the  large  one,  whose  questionable  char- 
acter was  too  evident  to  allow  me  to  accuse  my 
formidable  neighbor  of  slandering  them.  It 
was  equally  impossible  to  deny  the  nationality 
of  the  young  man.  He  might  have  been  twenty- 
five  years  of  age,  but  his  drawn  features  and 
pallid  skin,  his  shrunken  shoulders  and  the 
nervous  condition  visible  in  his  whole  being 
gave  him  a  look  of  premature  age,  counteracted 
however  by  a  pair  of  black  eyes  which  were 
very  keen  and  extremely  handsome.  He  was 
dressed  with  a  semi-elegance  which  had  a  flavor 
nt  pretension  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  touch  (if 
bohemianism  on  the  other.     You  ask  me  how  ? 


20  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

I  can  no  more  put  these  shades  into  words  than 
I  can  full)''  explain  the  general  characteristics 
which  made  this  stranger  the  type,  exclusively 
and  incontestaltly,  the  type  of  a  Frenchman.  It 
is  a  cut  of  the  coat,  it  is  a  gesture,  it  is  a  way  of 
sitting  down  to  table  and  taking  up  the  card  to 
order  dinner,  which  tells  us  instantly  that  we 
have  a  compatriot  within  two  feet  of  us.  I  shall 
have  the  courage  to  admit,  although  I  may 
wound  what  a  humorist  sarcastically  calls  ante- 
chamber patriotism,  that  such  a  meeting  is  more 
alarming  than  agreeable.  Travelling  French- 
men  certainly  bring  their  worst  qualities  to  the 
front,  —  like  travelling  English  and  travelling 
Germans  for  that  matter,  with  this  difference, 
that  while  I  am  indifferent  to  those  of  the 
English,  and  those  of  the  Germans  simply  enter- 
tain me,  T  suffer  from  the  vulgar  qualities  of 
Frenchmen  because  I  know  how  they  slander 
our  dear,  good  land.  I  have  never,  in  an  Italian 
cafe,  heard  a  Frenchman  on  his  travels  talking 
loudly  and  flouting  the  town  where  he  chanced 
to  be  and  the  one  from  which  he  came  in  mali- 
ciously depreciating  speeches,  without  reflecting 
that  there  were  twenty  ears  about  him  to  absorb 
his  jests,  or  rather  the  mere  wording  of  them. 
For  though  five  foreigners  out  of  ten  may  under- 
stand our  language,  how  many  know  its  spirit 
—  I  mean  the  harmless  spirit  of  its  wit?  One 
in  a  hundred  possibly.     What  absurd  national 


A    SAINT.  21 

misunderstandings  are  begun  and  envenomed 
by  these  thoughtless  remarks  made  in  public 
with  as  little  evil  intention  as  that  with  which 
some  of  us  scribble  articles  in  a  newspaper  oftice 
merely  to  eke  out  "  copy." 

The  present  stranger  belonged,  fortunately  for 
my  nerves,  to  the  species  which,  thanks  be  to 
God  !  does  exist,  of  silent  Frenchmen.  Moreover, 
his  companion  of  the  evening  absorbed  his  atten- 
tion in  a  manner  which  certainly  seemed  to 
justify  Miss  Roberts'  attack.  This  mysterious 
friend  was  about  thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  if 
he,  under  every  aspect,  was  a  Frenchman  of  the 
bourgeois  class,  she  was  as  unmistakably  an 
Italian,  from  her  little  head  to  her  little  feet, 
from  her  rather  too  marked  features  to  the  flounc- 
ings  of  her  crown,  from  the  end  of  her  arm  laden 
with  bracelets  to  the  tip  of  her  shoe  with  its  exag- 
gerated heel.  Her  black  eyes  betrayed  when  they 
rested  on  the  young  man  a  passion  which  was 
certainly  not  feigned.  Neither  of  them  appeared 
to  be  aware  that  they  were  under  observation, 
and  in  spite  of  a  vague  expression  of  slyness 
and  distrust  which  something,  I  hardly  know 
what,  gave  to  the  man,  this  air  of  mutual  senti- 
ment and  absorption  made  me  suddenly  sympa- 
thetic with  them,  —  so  much  so  that  I  undertook 
their  defence  against  Miss  Roberts  when  she 
continued  :  — 

"Besides,  she  is  twenty  years  older  than  he!" 


22  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

"  Say  ten,"  I  interrupted,  laughing ;  "  and  she 
is  very  pretty." 

"  With  us,  a  gentleman  never  parades  himself 
in  that  way  with  a  creature  who  is  not  a  lady." 

I  was  thankful  that  she  made  this  speech  in 
English,  which  my  compatriot  was  not  likely  to 
understand,  all  the  more  because  she  uttered  it 
in  a  high,  clear  voice.  I  could  not  help  reply- 
ing in  the  same  language,  partly,  I  acknowledge, 
from  the  vanity  of  proving  to  her  that  I  could 
speak  it. 

"  But  how  do  you  know  she  is  not  a  lady  ? " 

"  How  do  I  know  ? "  Ah  !  my  poor  little 
vanity.  I  was  punished  for  it  on  the  spot,  for 
she  corrected  my  pronunciation  sarcastically  by 
repeating  my  own  words.  "  Why,  look  at  the 
way  she  eats." 

I  must  confess  that  these  two  specimens  of 
the  Latin  race  presented  at  that  moment  a  spec- 
tacle which  did  not  conform  to  any  of  the  pre- 
cepts taught  by  governesses  on  the  farther  shores 
of  the  British  Channel.  While  waiting  for  the 
soup,  the  gentleman  had  begun  upon  the  flask 
of  Chianti  and  the  bread  beside  his  plate ;  he 
was  dipping  his  bread  in  wine  ;  while  she,  on 
her  part,  was  nibbling  a  bit  of  citron,  taken 
from  the  dishes  of  the  dessert.  The  contrast 
between  the  daughters  of  Albion  (as  they  were 
called  in  the  novels  of  1830)  and  these  children 
of  nature   was   a  little   overpowering.     I   was 


A   SAINT.  23 

afraid  I  should  laugh,  and  so,  as  dinner  was  now 
over,  I  left  the  table  at  the  same  time  as  the 
Germans,  the  Milanese,  the  relatives  of  the 
officer,  and  the  officer  himself.  I  thought  my 
neighbors  would  soon  follow  us,  as  in  fact  they 
did,  leaving  the  two  lovers  to  their  tete-a-tete, 
under  the  indulgent  protection  of  the  coral- 
buttoned  waiter.  Perhaps  there  was  some  virtue 
in  my  rather  precipitate  retreat,  for  I  surmised  a 
slight  romance  in  the  rather  unintelligible  con- 
junction  of  the  young  Frenchman  and  the  beau- 
tiful Italian.  But  I  would  die  sooner  than 
remorselessly  play  the  part  of  spy  which  modern 
writers  are  pleased  to  call  documentary  research, 
and  of  which  they  boast  as  a  professional  merit. 

The  following  morning  I  had  almost  forgotten 
this  more  or  less  morganatic  pair,  and  was  think- 
ing only  of  the  frescos  discovered  by  Dom 
Grifii,  and  of  the  best  means  of  transporting  my- 
self to  the  convent  of  Monte-Chiaro.  I  went  to 
the  office  of  the  hotel  to  discuss  the  little  jour- 
ney with  the  clerk,  an  ex-Garibaldian  who  was 
so  proud  of  having  worn  the  red  blouse  of  the 
Milk  that  he  still  lived  in  a  fog  of  ultra-revolu- 
tionary fancies,  —  all  the  while  busy,  with  com- 
mendable activity,  in  providing  that  hot-water 
was  duly  sent  to  No.  6  and  that  Xo.  10  obtained 
the  tea  it  ordered. 

"The  government   is  too  indulgent  to   these 


24  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

conspirators,"  he  said  to  me,  referring  to  the 
poor  monks,  instead  of  replying  to  my  questions 
about  the  road  to  take,  the  vehicle  to  choose, 
and  the  price  to  pay.  My  friends  the  English- 
women had  gone  by  the  diligence  as  far  as  it 
went,  and  had  done  the  rest  of  the  way  on  foot. 
I  succeeded,  however,  in  extracting  from  the 
Cavaliere  Dante  Annibale  Cornacchini  (such  was 
the  name  of  the  former  companion  of  the  Hero) 
a  promise  that  a  coachman  selected  by  him 
should  await  me  with  a  light  carriage  at  the 
tocco.  What  a  charming  expression !  and  how 
characteristic  of  the  Italian  people ;  there 's  a 
whole  sensation  in  it.  It  means  one  blow  of 
a  hammer,  and  also  one  hour  after  midday,  the 
hour  when  the  clock-hammer  sounds  one  blow. 
What  was  my  surprise  when  on  leaving  the 
office  of  the  hotel  (where  a  bronze  statuette 
of  the  General  in  his  blouse  and  another  of 
Mazzini  in  an  overcoat  surmounted  the  hostelry 
placards)  I  found  myself  face  to  face  with  the 
young  Parisian  of  the  previous  evening,  who  was 
evidently  waiting  for  me ;  for  he  approached  at 
once  with  a  certain  grace  of  manner,  or  so  it 
seemed  to  me,  —  for  what  author  would  not  have 
looked  with  favorable  eyes  upon  the  hearing  of 
a  stranger  who  met  hiin  with  words  like  these  :  — 
"  Monsieur,  I  have  seen  your  name  upon  the 
register,  and  as  I  have  read  all  your  works  I 
venture  "  — etc. 


V        .  ..:  " 


"  I  found  myself  ten  minutes  later  walking  along  the 
quay  with  this  stranger."  —  Page  25. 


A   SAINT.  2 


ZO 


It  is  enough  to  have  been  before  the  public  in 
any  capacity  whatever  to  know  how  little  such 
compliments  are  worth.  But  the  childish  van- 
ity of  the  literary  man  is  such  that  he  is  always 
taken  in  by  them  and  does  as  I  then  did  ;  for 
(having  vowed  to  myself  that  I  would  not  spoil 
my  sensation  of  that  dear  and  mournful  Pisa  with 
frivolous  talk  and  new  acquaintances)  I  found  ' 
myself  ten  minutes  later  walking  along  the  quay 
with  this  stranger  :  in  less  than  half  an  hour  I 
was  wandering,  still  in  his  company,  beneath  the 
vaults  of  the  Campo  Santo ;  and  at  the  end  of 
another  hour  I  had  induced  him  to  accompany 
me  to  the  convent,  and  we  were  both  getting 
into  the  carrozzela  with  one  horse  which  was  to 
take  us  to  Monte-Chiaro.  This  sudden  travelling 
intimacy  sprang  up  without  the  motive  on  my 
part  of  a  nearer  view  of  the  pretty  and  natural 
Italian  who  had  dined  with  him  on  the  preced- 
ing evenin<>\  He  had  taken  care,  be  it  under- 
stood,  to  speak  of  her  at  once.  I  thus  learned 
that  the  possessor  of  those  expressive  features, 
that  emotional  pallor,  and  the  gestures  which 
were  almost  vulgar  was  an  actress  in  a  travelling 
troop  then  at  Florence,  and  that  she  had  left  Pisa 
that  morning  to  play  at  night,  and  that  he  had 
been  unable  to  accompany  her.  He  did  not  tell 
me  why.  But  I  guessed  the  reason  from  the 
rest  of  his  history,  which  he  related  in  the  first 
half-hour  we  were  together.     Even  without  the 


26  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

rather  romantic  attraction  of  this  little  incident 
he  would  have  taken  my  attention  as  a  sharply- 
defined  type  of  a  class  of  young  men  whom  I 
already  knew,  as  1  thought,  sufficiently  well.  Still 
one  can  never  see  too  much  of  the  representatives 
of  a  coming  generation.  How  can  we  help  them 
(for  that  is  the  duty  of  those  of  us  who  wield  the 
pen)  if  we  do  not  talk  with  them,  and  talk  a  good 
deal,  too  ?  But,  alas,  it  was  not  impressions  of 
this  kind  that  I  was  seeking  along  the  shores  of 
the  sad  and  glaucous  Arno.  Was  I  fated  to 
meet,  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  that  which  I 
like  least  in  Paris  without  beino;  able  to  check 
my  interest  in  it,  as  though  I  really  liked  it  ? 
Would  my  insatiable  curiosity  about  the  human 
sou]  never  cease  to  be  stronger  than  my  lofty 
projects,  of  an  ideal  existence  among  the  master- 
pieces of  art  ? 

The  young  man  was  known  by  the  unaristo- 
cratic  name  of  Philippe  Dubois.  He  was  the 
fourth  son  of  a  university  professor  of  some 
standing  but  little  means.  After  a  brilliant 
course  of  study  at  his  provincial  lyceum  he  had 
come  to  Paris,  first  with  a  scholarship  as  licen- 
tiate, next  on  a  fellowship.  He  passed  his  two 
examinations,  and  the  influence  of  a  friend  of  his 
father  obtained  for  him  a  mission  to  Italy  in 
quest  of  archaeological  remains.  This  employ- 
ment had  come  to  an  end  during  the  present 
month,   and    lie    was    now   on    his   way    back 


A   SAINT.  27 

to  France.  I  had  lived  too  keenly  during  my 
own  youth  among  surroundings  analogous  to  his, 
not  to  understand  at  once  the  pinched  condition 
to  which  the  family  resources  had  reduced  him. 
Probably  he  had  barely  enough  money  to  get 
home.  That  was,  no  doubt,  the  real  reason  why 
the  actress  had  left  him  without  Ids  being  able 
to  follow  her.  In  recalling  at  this  moment  the 
various  confidences  he  made  to  me  I  once  more 
recognize  the  truth  that  external  facts  are  of 
little  account;  the  true  motor  is  in  the  soul 
which  receives  their  impression. 

This  sudden  attraction  between  a  young  student 
in  love  with  the  world  of  antiquity,  where  all  is 
beauty,  and  an  ardent  and  disinterested  young- 
actress  is  already  assuming  the  charm  of  a  senti- 
mental idyl,  is  it  not  ?  Eemark  the  elements, 
—  a  forced  parting,  the  shedding  of  many  tears, 
the  acceptance  of  a  path  to  which  destiny  has 
called  us,  —  truly  a  romance  of  capricious  fate, 
and  all  its  poesy  ! 

I  had  no  difficulty  in  assuring  myself  that 
Philippe  Dubois  felt  none  of  the  sad  and  touch- 
ing emotions  which  belonged  to  his  romance. 
There  was  not  the  slightest  shade  of  tenderness 
in  the  words  with  which  he  unfolded  to  me  his 
facile  intrigue.  They  betrayed  nothing  but  the 
vanity  of  being  loved  by  a  woman  who,  as  I 
afterwards  ascertained,  was  a  good  deal  before 
the  public.     But  then,  if  he  had  been  the  ingeu- 


28  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

uous  lover  that  he  ought  to  have  been  would  he 
have  captured  my  attention  as  he  did  when  I 
discovered  that  his  past  existence  of  studious 
youth  was  but  a  phase,  an  aspect,  just  as  this 
love  affair  was,  to  his  mind,  a  mere  accident  ? 
That  which  constituted  the  actual  being  of  this 
vouno-  fellow  was  one  of  the  most  excessive 
literary  ambitions  which  I  have  met  during  my 
intercourse  with  such  aspirants,  —  an  ambition 
that  was  all  the  more  keen  because  his  pride, 
joined  to  a  certain  sullen  timidity,  had  hitherto 
prevented  him  from  entering  the  career.  During 
the  four  or  five  years  of  arid  study  which  fol- 
lowed his  college  life  he  had  nourished  the 
literary  incubus  on  his  breast  with  all  the  cruel 
candor  that  malady  compels.  There  were  in  him, 
and  very  distinctly,  two  persons  :  one  submis- 
sive and  duty-bound,  the  son  of  a  professor  sent 
on  a  mission  ;  the  other  poetic,  with  the  soul  of 
a  romance-maker  without  a  career,  with  all 
the  acrimony  of  that  precocious  bitterness  which 
accompanies  a  repressed  vocation.  Such  duality 
is  a  proof  of  strong  will  or,  better  still,  of  a 
nature  superior  through  adaptiveness  and  the 
power  of  self-control.  But  the  harshness  and  acri- 
mony revealed  at  the  same  time  a  loveless  soul, 
whose  chief  aspirations  in  a  literary  career  were 
for  the  coarser  satisfactions  of  fame  and  money. 
"You  can  understand,"  he  said  to  me,  after 
relating  several  scenes  in  his  intercourse  with 


A    SAINT.  29 

the  poor  actress  iu  which  he  played  a  sufficiently 
Juanesque  part  to  take  pleasure  in  recalling  them, 
"  you  can  understand  that  I  have  not  lost  the 
advantage  of  such  emotions.  I  have  nearly 
finished  a  little  volume  of  verses  which  I  will 
show  you  later — -  Ah!  I've  had  enough  of 
Etruscan  tombs  and  Greek  inscriptions  and  all 
that  pedantic  drudgery  which  I  only  agreed  to 
do  lor  pay.  As  soon  as  I  take  my  lust  degree  I 
shall  resign  and  launch  out  into  a  literary  career. 
I  have  a  series  of  articles  in  my  head.  Some 
I've  already  sent  to  various  journals  signed 
with  a  pen-name.  They  have  not  appeared  — 
envy,  I  know,  in   the   men   who  read  them." 

"  You  should  make  allowance  for  the  unhappy 
editors,  who  have  not  time  to  read  everything 
themselves,"  I  said.  "  They  are  pledged  to  take 
certain  things ;  and  besides,  they  must  admit 
achieved  positions  and  well-known  talent." 

"Well-known  talent!  let's  talk  of  that,"  he 
exclaimed  with  a  bitter  laugh,  which  increased 
my  perception  of  the  smothered  rage  of  the  un- 
published writer,  embittered  by  envy  before  he 
had  even  measured  himself  with  his  rivals  ;  and 
he  proceeded  to  take  up  one  by  one  all  the  best- 
known  authors  of  the  present  day.  This  one 
was  a  mere  relater  of  anecdotes  without  thought; 
that  one  a  hawker  of  images  for  workmen  ;  that 
other  a  Paul  de  Kock  modernized,  the  fourth 
was   a   social    manoeuvre!-,    clever    at    sugaring 


30  TASTELS    OF   MEN. 

Stendhal  and  Balzac  for  the  cloyed  stomachs  of 
fashionable  women.     To  all  of  them  he  fastened 
the   low  tales  tattled  throughout  Paris    by  the 
score    in    the    childishly    cruel   little    world    of 
literary  aspirants.     I  let  him  talk  with  a  pro- 
found sense  of  sadness  ;  not  that  I  attach  ex- 
treme importance  to  the  strictures  of  the  new- 
comers upon  their  elders  —  among  whom  I  now 
rank.     Such  attacks  have  been   made  from  all 
time,  and  they  have  their  uses ;  it  was  the  sarcasm 
of  Mephistopheles  which  compelled  Faust  to  work. 
But  I  perceived  beneath  these  harsh  criticisms 
(witli  which  perhaps  he  fancied  he  pleased  me 
by  condemning  my  literary  fellows,  foolish  lacl !) 
a  real  anguish.     Above  all,  I  noticed  in  him  the 
excessive  and  preternatural  pride  which  belongs 
to  our  period  —  I  mean  in  the  world  of  thinkers. 
Formerly  all  ambitions  were  alike  selfish,  though 
that  among  literary  men  was  the  least  perceptibly 
so.      Nowadays    when  universal    levelling    has 
brought  the  recognized  brain-worker  into  a  more 
brilliant  position  (at  least  apparently)  literature 
appears  to  many  as  a  fair  means  of  rapid  fortune. 
They  enter  it  therefore  as  others  enter  commerce 
—  for  precisely  the  same  reasons.     There  is,  how- 
ever, this  difference.     The  ardent  toiler   in  the 
Bourse   and    its    by-ways    knows    that    lie    has 
money  behind  him ;  the  ardent  toiler  in   litera- 
ture mistakes  his  eagerness  after  success  for  the 
afflatus  of  apostleship ;  and  this  produces,  if  sue- 


A   SAINT.  31 

cess  does  not  come  to  him  by  the  time  be  is 
forty,  a  condition  of  soul  tbat  is  truly  terrible, 
for  the  most  painful  passions  and  the  vilest  com- 
bine to  rend  him.  This  was  seen  only  too 
plainly  among  certain  writers  of  the  Commune. 
As  I  listened  to  the  young  man's  talk  I  knew 
him  for  the  goaded  rebel  of  his  circumstances. 
But,  even  so,  the  rebel  of  the  period.  He  held 
himself  in  hand,  partly  from  an  instinct  of  bour- 
geois prudence,  and  also  from  a  natural  taste  for 
the  higher  culture  which  ought  to  have  saved 
him,  and  might  still  do  so.  Had  he  not  had 
the  intelligence  and  the  patience  to  acquire,  in 
spite  of  his  envious  literary  fever,  a  science,  the 
knowledge  of  a  craft  ?  and  this  thought  gave  me 
the  idea  of  a  struggle  which  might  have  taken 
place  or  was  now  taking  place  within  him. 

"  You  are  very  severe  on  your  elders,"  I  said, 
to  stop  his  string  of  Parisian  calumnies.  "  I 
know  all  those  tales ;  they  are  monotonously 
abject  and  false  !  " 

"  You  '11  see  what  I  shall  say  when  I  begin  to 
write  !  "  he  cried,  with  a  fatuous  self-conceit  that 
was  naive  and  yet  villanous.  "  Ha  !  ha !  one 
must  treat  one's  predecessors  as  the  Polynesians 
do  old  men.  They  put  them  up  a  tree  and 
shake  it.  As  long  as  the  old  fellows  have 
strength  to  hold  on  it 's  all  right.  When  they 
fall  they  are  knocked  on  the  head  and  eaten." 

I  did  not  reply  to  the  youthful  blood-thirsti- 


32  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

ness  of  this  paradox.  Philippe  Dubois  was 
merely  "  getting  a  rise  "  out  of  me,  to  use  an 
expressive  slang  term  now  a  little  out  of  date. 
I  continued  the  conversation  by  inquiring  as  to 
his  researches  in  archaeology ;  which  put  him 
into  visible  ill-humor.  Then  I  gave  him,  point- 
blank,  the  advice  not  to  enter  journalism  when 
he  returned  to  France,  but  to  find  a  situation  in 
the  provinces,  where  he  could  live  a  useful  life 
and  eventually  come  before  the  public  as  the 
writer  of  some  valuable  work.  That,  alas !  was 
the  advice  which  was  given  to  me  at  his  age,  but 
I  had  not  followed  it ;  which  goes  to  prove 
that  this  lottery  of  misery  and  fame  called  the 
profession  of  men  of  letters  will  always  tempt  a 
certain  class  of  souls  among  young  men.  Must 
I  own  it  ?  I  felt  a  sort  of  irony,  almost  an  hy- 
pocrisy in  the  role  of  moralist  which  I  was 
playing.  It  gave  me  a  slight  sense  of  remorse, 
and  then,  as  I  really  pitied  the  groundwork  of 
inward  dissatisfaction  on  which  he  appeared  to 
me  to  be  living,  I  ended  by  proposing  that 
he  should  go  with  me  to  the  convent.  This  ex- 
cursion led  to  the  brief  and  rapid  drama  to 
which  I  have  alluded,  —  to  explain  which  these 
over-long  preliminaries  were  really  necessary. 
Philippe's  return  would  be  delayed  only  two 
days ;  he  accepted  the  proposal  and  we  started 
as  the  hour  "  struck  "  according  to  the  promise 
of  the  ex-Milk,  another  of  whose  delightful  say- 


A    SAINT.  33 

ings  I  cannot  refrain  from  here  quoting.  He 
seized  the  opportunity,  while  we  were  waiting 
for  the  coachman,  to  communicate  his  ideas  on 
the  existing  French  parliament,  "They  have 
lost  the  revolutionary  traditions,"  he  said  to 
me  ;  and  then,  after  a  terrorist  declamation  which 
I  will  not  transcribe,  he  added,  with  comical 
melancholy,  "  I  even  think  they  are  capitalists  ! " 

Thanks  to  this  speech,  which  Philippe  enjoyed 
as  much  as  I  did,  we  started  in  "  high  spirits  " 
as  Miss  Mary  Dobson  would  have  said,  I  much 
disposed,  as  indeed  he  was,  to  enjoy  the  trip. 
The  road  which  leads  from  Pisa  to  Monte- 
Chiaro  runs  at  first  through  a  charming  land- 
scape of  vineyards  interspersed  with  mulberry 
trees.  Gigantic  reeds  quiver  to  the  breeze, 
villas  surrounded  by  cedars  bear  marble  lions  on 
their  entrance  gates,  and  always,  for  a  back- 
ground, lie  the  gorges  of  that  mountain  which, 
as  Dante  says,  prevents  the  Pisans  from  seeing 
Lucca :  — 

"  Cacciarulo  '1  lupo  e  i  lupicini  al  monte, 
Per  che  i  Pisau  veder  Lucca  non  ponno." 

"That  is  what  is  lacking  tons  in  France,"  I  re- 
marked to  my  companion  after  quoting  the  lines. 
"  We  have  no  poet  who  has  given  a  legendary 
fame  to  the  remotest  corners  of  his  native  land." 

"  Do  you  care  for  that  ? "  he  answered.  "  Xow, 
for  my  part,  Joanne's  guide-book  for  this  region 

3 


q 


4  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 


puts  me  quite  out  of  conceit  of  the  Divine 
Comedy." 

Keceiving  this  reply  and  noticing  that  his  late 
gayety  was  already  over,  I  regretted  having 
brought  him.  I  foresaw  that  if  he  began  by 
fencing  with  paradox  he  would  keep  to  the  foils ; 
and  a  young  man  of  his  type  once  thrown  into 
an  attitude  of  self-conceit,  stiffens  himself  in  it 
more  and  more,  though  it  be  to  his  own  injury. 
I  dropped  into  silence  therefore,  and  tried  to  lose 
myself  in  the  contemplation  of  nature,  which 
was  now  growing  wilder.  Our  carriage,  though 
light,  was  moving  slowly.  We  were  entering  a 
region  which  was  almost  without  vegetation. 
Bare  foot-hills  rose  on  all  sides  ;  huge  swellings, 
as  it  were,  of  grayish  clay  fissured  by  rain.  No 
more  brooks,  no  more  vineyards,  no  olive-trees, 
no  villas,  but  a  positive  resemblance  to  a  desert. 
The  coachman  was  off  his  box.  He  was  a  little 
man,  with  a  square  and  delicately  cut  face,  who 
called  his  gray  mare  Zara  and  softened,  like 
other  Tuscans,  the  hard  c  at  the  beginning  of 
words  into  the  aspirated  h.  "  Huesta  havalla," 
he  said,  speaking  of  his  beast,  instead  of  "questa 
cavalla,"  —  this  mare. 

"  I  bought  her  at  Livorno,  monsieur,"  he  said 
to  me.  "  I  paid  only  two  hundred  francs  for 
her  because  they  thought  she  was  lame.  Look 
and  see  if  she  is  !  —  Hey  !  Zara,  courage  !  She 
follows  me  about,  monsieur,  just  like  a  dog,  and 


A    SAINT.  35 

I  love  her,  ah,  yes,  I  love  her !  My  wife  is  jeal- 
ous, hut  I  tell  her,  '  Zara  earns  my  bread,  and 
you  —  you  eat  it.'  There,  monsieur,  look  at 
those  rocks ;  that 's  where  Lorenzo  di  Medici 
came  near  being  murdered  after  the  massacre  of 
the  Pazzi." 

"  Is  n't  it  a  curious  thing,"  I  remarked  to  my 
companion,  "  that  this  man,  who  is  only  cab- 
driver,  should  talk  to  us  in  the  same  breath  of 
his  mare  Zara  and  Lorenzo  di  Medici  ?  Ah, 
these  Italians  !  How  they  know  the  history  of 
their  beloved  land,  and  how  proud  they  are  of 
it!" 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,"  said  Philippe,  shrugging  his 
shoulders,  "  Alfieri  has  a  line  which  suits  them 
'  The  human  plant  is  born  maturer  here  than 
elsewhere.'  The  fact  is  that  they  are  taught 
from  their  earliest  years  to  speculate  on  foreign- 
ers ;  they  are  trained  to  the  quest  of  fees.  They 
are  scarcely  weaned  before  they  turn  into  guides. 
Ha  !  I  '11  write  a  novel  on  modern  Italy  and  its 
colossal  humbugs  !  I  've  collected  notes.  I  '11 
show  up  this  nation — " 

Whereupon  he  launched  forth  into  a  violent 
diatribe  against  that  sweet  country  where  the 
si  resounds,  while  I  continued,  for  my  part,  to 
see  her  as  she  first  appeared  to  me  in  1874, 
the  home,  the  sole  home  of  Beauty.  Philippe's 
outburst  reminded  me  of  talks  I  had  heard  in 
my  early  years,  when  I  frequented  the  symposia 


36  PASTELS    OF    MEN'. 

of  future  poets  and  romance-writers.  Nearly- 
all  these  embryo  writers  were  employed  in  the 
public  offices.  Bitterly  hating  that  abject  life, 
they  spent  hours  in  filling  their  souls  with  gall, 
pouring  out  their  contempt  for  men  and  things 
with  a  species  of  acrid  eloquence  which  often 
made  me,  in  those  days,  doubt  everything  ami 
myself  as  well.  I  was  ignorant  then  of  what  I 
have  since  had  too  good  reason  to  know  by  ex- 
perience, that  such  eloquence  is  merely  a  form 
of  impotent  envy  which  knows  itself  for  what  it 
is.  All  great  talent  begins  and  ends  in  love  and 
in  enthusiasm.  The  precocious  cynics  are  the 
unfortunates  who  foresee  their  future  sterility 
and  are  taking  a  premature  revenge.  Heavens  ! 
how  I  wished  the  fellow  would  talk  to  me  (with 
exaggerated,  even  ridiculous  ardor  if  he  chose) 
about  Florence  where  he  had  worked,  where  he 
had  been  loved,  —  yes,  above  all,  about  his  love. 
But  he  really  seemed  to  have  forgotten  it  as  he 
plunged,  apropos  of  the  book  he  intended  to 
write  on  Italy,  into  inquiries  as  to  the  salaries 
or  the  profits  of  our  principal  authors." 

"  Is  it  true  that  Jacques  Molan  gets  a  franc 
and  a  half  a  volume  ?  They  tell  me  Vincy  is 
paid  two  francs  a  line  —  ah,  the  wretch  ! " 

I  now  discerned  behind  all  this  bitter  criti- 
cism and  the  hardening  effect  of  disillusion  an 
almost  frantic  desire  for  money,  and  by  an  in- 
consistency which  was  really  explainable,  I  for- 


A   SAINT.  37 

gave  him  for  that  sentiment  far  more  than  for 
his  irony.  The  iron  hand  of  necessity  presses  so 
cruelly  upon  a  brain  in  which  all  youthful  ener- 
gies are  seething,  and  which  sees  in  a  trifle  of 
gold  the  emancipation  of  its  inner  self. 

"  And  to  think,"  he  concluded  with  infinite 
bitterness,  "  that  my  father  will  not  give  me  even 
the  first  three  thousand  francs  that  I  must  have  to 
live  in  Paris  before  I  make  my  first  appearance 
as  an  author  !  Yes,  that  sum  would  be  enough 
to  keep  me  while  I  learned  my  ground  and 
waged  my  first  battle.  Three  thousand  francs  ! 
just  what  a  commonplace  fellow  like  [here  the 
name  of  a  writer  much  in  vogue]  gets  for  fifty 
pages  of  copy  ! " 

I  have  omitted  to  say  that  in  the  meantime 
he  had  sketched  his  father  and  mother  for  my 
benefit  in  rather  flattering  likenesses.  How  can 
I  explain  that  in  spite  of  all  this  he  still  con- 
tinued to  interest  me  ?  He  was  giving  vent  to 
the  ideas  I  most  dislike  ;  he  divulged  sentiments 
which  seemed  to  me  radically  opposed  to  those  a 
young  writer  ought  to  feel.  But  with  it  all  I 
felt  that  he  suffered  ;  and  I  waited  for  the  reac- 
tion, when,  having  produced  his  first  effect,  he 
might  listen  to  my  sage  counsels  and  possibly 
let  me  rectify  two  or  three  of  his  absurd  points 
of  view.  On  this  I  counted  all  the  more  because 
his  manner  of  expressing  himself,  and  his  refer- 
ences, revealed  a  genuine  culture  and  a  mind  that 


38  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

was   more    than    keen  —  that   was   strong   and 
original. 

The  scenery  grew  more  and  more  savage.  We 
had  left  behind  us,  in  the  far  distance,  the  great 
plain  on  which  Pisa  lies.  The  dome  and  the 
leaning  tower  reappeared  every  now  and  then 
between  two  peaks,  as  if  raised  in  relief  upon  a 
map.  Livorno  was  outlined  far  below,  with  the 
sea  in  all  its  blueness ;  while  about  us  yawned 
those  great  holes  hollowed  in  the  friable  earth 
which  they  call  in  those  parts  baize.  Summits 
and  peaks  bare  and  menacing  overhung  us.  The 
cattle,  now  few  in  number,  were  no  longer  the 
beautiful  white  beasts  of  the  Maremma,  with 
their  long,  straight  horns.  The  horns  of  these 
were  short  and  curved  upwards,  their  hides  were 
as  gray  as  the  soil.  For  the  first  time  since  we 
started  Philippe  Dubois  said  a  few  words  which 
betrayed  a  consciousness  of  present  sensation. 

"  Is  n't  the  whole  landscape  like  a  series  of 
pit-holes  ?  — just  the  place  for  a  convent." 

At  that  instant  the  coachman,  now  on  his 
box,  turned  to  me  and  called  out :  — 

"  Monsieur,  there  's  Monte-Chiaro." 

With  the  end  of  his  whip  he  pointed  to  a 
valley  on  a  slope  of  the  mountain  more  gullied 
than  the  rest,  in  the  centre  of  which,  on  a  little 
hill  planted  with  cypress-trees,  stood  a  long- 
structure  built  of  red  brick.  On  that  cloudless 
blue  day  the  color  of  the  walls   contrasted  so 


9* 


MONTE  CHIARO. 


A   SAINT.  39 

vividly  with  the  blackness  of  the  surrounding 
foliage  that  the  reason  for  the  name,  Monte- 
Chiaro,  was  obvious.  Except  on  the  Monte- 
Oliveto,  near  Sienna,  I  have  never  seen  a  sanc- 
tuary for  retreat  so  relentlessly  far  removed  from 
all  approach  of  human  life.  I  knew,  from  in- 
formation obtained  of  the  Garibaldian  at  Pisa, 
which  eked  out  that  of  the  Englishwomen,  that 
the  abbe"  had  consented  to  the  humble  task  of 
housing  and  feeding  the  visitors  who  came  to 
see  the  convent,  which  was  secularized  in  1867. 

"  What  sort  of  cooking  do  you  think  we  shall 
find  in  this  Theba'i'd  ?"  I  said  to  my  companion, 
to  whom  I  had  previously  explained  the  manner 
in  which  we  were  to  pass  the  night  and  the 
following  day. 

"  As  there 's  a  tariff  charge  of  five  francs  a 
day,"  he  replied,  "  the  priest  wouldn't  belong  to 
this  country  if  he  did  n't  put  three  in  his  own 
pocket." 

"  Well,  at  any  rate,  a  fine  Benozzo  Gozzoli  is 
well  worth  a  bad  dinner,"  I  replied,  laughing. 

Half  an  hour  after  we  had  thus  come  in  sight, 
from  a  rise  in  the  road,  of  the  time-worn  refuge 
of  the  Benedictines,  once  so  celebrated  through- 
out Tuscany,  now  so  sadly  solitary,  the  white 
mare  Zara  was  beginning  to  climb  the  hilly  ap- 
proach, which  was  planted  with  cypress-trees. 
My  companion  and  I  left  the  carriage  and  walked 


40  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

up  for  a  better  view  of  the  little  shrines  raised 
along  the  side  of  the  road  at  a  distance  of  some 
fifty  feet  apart,  and  were  under  the  spell,,  he  as 
well  as  I,  of  the  melancholy  majesty  of  this 
approach  to  the  cloister.  I  beheld  in  thought 
the  innumerable  white  cowls  which  had  filed 
through  these  sombre  avenues,  the  Benedictines 
of  Monte-Chiaro  having  been,  like  those  of 
Oliveto,  dedicated  to  the  Virgin.  My  English 
friend  had  initiated  me  into  this  little  matter 
of  costume.  I  thought  of  the  simple  souls  to 
whom  this  barren  horizon  had  marked  the  end  of 
the  world,  of  the  weary  souls  who  had  found  rest 
in  this  lonely  spot,  of  the  violent  souls  gnawed 
here  as  elsewhere  by  envy,  by  ambition,  by  all 
those  cravings  of  pride  which  the  apostle  justly 
classes  among  the  lusts  of  the  flesh.  My  absorp- 
tion in  this  vision  was  so  complete  that  I  woke 
with  a  start  when  the  coachman,  who  was  walk- 
ing up  this  last  ascent,  leading  Zara  by  the  bridle 
and  talking  to  her  to  encourage  her,  suddenly 
turned  and  called  back  to  me  :  — 

"  Monsieur,  here  's  the  Father  abbe"  coming  to 
meet  us.     He  must  have  heard  the  wheels." 

"  Why,  that 's  the  late  Hyacinth,  of  the  Palais 
Royal !"  cried  Philippe.  It  is  true  that,  seen  as 
he  was  on  the  threshold  of  the  convent,  at  the 
farther  end  of  the  sombre  path,  the  poor  monk 
did  present  a  beggarly  appearance.  He  wore  a 
ragged   cassock,   the  color  of   which,  originally 


A    SAINT.  41 

black,  was  now  greenish.  He  told  ine  later  that 
the  government  had  placed  him  in  charge  of  the 
confiscated  convent  on  condition  that  he  re- 
nounced the  beautiful  white  robe  of  his  order. 
His  tall,  thin  body,  slightly  bowed  by  age,  rested 
on  a  stick.  The  brim  of  his  hat  was  thread- 
worn.  His  face,  turned  towards  the  new-comers, 
and  perfectly  smooth,  did  vaguely  resemble  that 
of  a  comic  actor,  while  an  endless  nose  developed 
therefrom,  —  the  nose  of  a  snuff-taker,  —  seeming 
longer  still  from  the  leanness  of  the  cheeks  and 
the  sunken  mouth,  which  had  lost  its  front  teeth. 
But  the  old  man's  glance  soon  corrected  this  first 
impression.  Though  his  eyes  were  not  large, 
and  their  color,  of  a  muddy  green,  was  indistinct, 
a  flame  burned  within  them  which  would  soon 
have  quenched  the  jesting  spirit  of  my  young 
companion  if  he  had  had  the  slightest  experience 
in  judging  of  the  human  countenance.  His  im- 
pertinent remark  shocked  me  all  the  more  be- 
cause he  made  it  in  a  high  tone  of  voice,  which 
sounded  through  the  deep  silence  of  the  autumn 
afternoon.  But  did  Dorn  Gabriele  Griffi  under- 
stand French  ?  and  if  he  did,  would  the  name 
of  the  poor  comedian  who  played  the  part  of 
Marasquiu  so  comically  in  the  Mari  de  la  debu- 
tante, mean  anything  to  his  mind  ?  The  foolish 
jest  served  to  flash  the  scenes  of  that  amusing 
play  before  my  mind.  What  a  contrast !  The 
four  little  girls  who  cry  so  gayly  under  the  de- 


42  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

spairing  nose  of  the  said  Hyacinth,  all  four 
pointing  their  pretty  toes  in  the  air  at  the  same 
moment,  "  Safemme  la  quitte —  pour  aller  f aire 
la  noce  —  et  allez  done''  were  pirousttiDg  before 
me  when  the  hermit,  whose  guests  we  were  now 
to  be,  said  to  us  in  the  purest  and  most  elegant 
Italian,  — 

"  You  have  come,  gentlemen,  to  visit  the  con- 
vent ?  Why  did  you  not  send  me  word  ?  Pas- 
quale,"  he  added,  addressing  the  coachman,  "you 
should  have  told  these  gentlemen  to  send  me  a 
written  notice." 

"  I  thought,  of  course,  the  gentlemen  had  done 
so,  Father  abbe\  when  the  clerk  at  their  hotel 
confided  them  to  my  care." 

"  Well,  they  must  eat  what  there  is,"  said  the 
abbe' ;  then  turning  to  us  with  a  kindly  smile, 
and  a  gesture  towards  heaven,  he  added,  "  When 
things  go  wrong  we  must  shut  our  eyes  and  com- 
mend ourselves  up  there!' 

I  stammered,  in  moderately  correct  Italian,  an 
excuse,  which  the  father  cut  short  with  a  wave 
of  his  hand. 

"  Come  and  look  at  your  rooms  in  the  first  place. 
To  console  you  for  the  food  you  will  be  obliged 
to  eat  I  will  make  you  priors  of  the  order." 

He  laughed  at  his  little  joke,  the  meaning  of 
which  I  did  not  at  the  moment  seize.  I  was 
completely  absorbed  in  the  strange  sight  of  the 
vast  red  edifice  in  the  glow  of  the  setting  sun  ; 


A   SAINT.  43 

measuring  its  great  size  and  comprehending  its 
solitude  in  the  same  glance.  Monte-Chiaro  was 
built  at  various  periods,  from  the  day  in  1259 
when  the  head  of  the  family  of  the  Gherardesca, 
uncle  of  Uirolino  the  tragic,  retired  to  this  re- 
mote  valley  with  nine  companions,  seeking  to  do 
penance.  In  the  last  century  over  three  hundred 
monks  lived  here  at  their  ease  ;  and  the  abbey 
and  its  belongings,  its  bakery,  fish-pond,  wine- 
press, and  cow-sheds,  sufficed  for  their  main- 
tenance. But  the  innumerable  windows  of  this 
great  farmhouse  were  now  closed,  the  faded 
color  of  the  shutters,  once  green,  told  of  its 
abandonment,  as  did  the  grass  on  the  terrace  be- 
fore the  church  and  the  veil  of  dusty  cobwebs 
on  the  walls  of  the  corridors  through  which  we 
passed  as  we  followed  Dom  Griffi. 

Even  the  minor  details  of  the  ornamentation 
showed  the  former  prosperity  of  the  abbey,  from 
the  vast  lavabo  of  marble,  with  lion's  heads, 
placed  at  the  entrance  of  the  refectory,  to  the 
architecture  of  the  three  cloisters,  one  succeeding 
another,  and  all  three  decorated  with  frescos. 
A  mere  glance  showed  me  that  these  paintings 
were  in  the  pedantic  Italian  taste  of  the  seven- 
teenth century ;  possibly,  therefore,  their  aca- 
demic coloring  concealed  some  spontaneous 
masterpiece  of  a  Gozzoli  or  an  Orcagna.  We 
mounted  the  steps  of  a  staircase  hung  with  pict- 
ures blackened  by  time,  among  them  a  charming 


44  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

cavalier  of  Timoteo  della  Vite,  the  real  master 
of  Raffaelle,  stranded  here  by  chance.  Then 
we  entered  another  corridor  on  the  next  floor, 
with  numerous  cell  doors  marked  Visitator 
primus,  Visitator  secundus,  and  so  on,  until  we 
stopped  before  the  last,  which  was  surmounted 
by  a  mitre  and  crozier.  The  abbe",  who  had  not 
said  a  word  since  we  left  the  entrance,  except  to 
point  out  the  Timoteo,  now  spoke  in  French, 
with  a  slightly  Italian  turn  of  phrase,  but  very 
little  accent,  — 

"  These  are  the  cpuarters  which  I  give  to 
guests ; "  then  making  way  for  us  to  enter,  he 
added :  "  The  superiors  of  the  convent  occupied 
these  rooms  for  five  hundred  years." 

I  glanced  at  Master  Philippe  from  the  corner 
of  my  eye,  and  perceived  that  he  was  somewhat 
shamefaced  at  the  discovery  that  our  guide  was 
thoroughlv  conversant  with  the  French  lanmiacre. 
He  had  chosen  as  we  came  along  the  corridors 
to  make  other  remarks  and  jokes  in  very  doubt- 
ful taste.  Had  the  abbe"  noticed  them,  and  did 
he  mean  to  give  us  warning  that  he  understood 
what  we  said  ?  or  was  he  merely  seeking  in  his 
simple  hospitality  to  relieve  us  of  the  effort  of 
speaking  in  a  foreign  language  ?  I  could  not 
guess  his  meaning  from  the  immovable  features 
of  his  large  face.  He  seemed  wholly  absorbed 
in  the  numerous  memories  which  the  vast  room 
where  we  now  stood  evoked  for  him.     It  was 


''These  are  the  quarters  winch  I  give  (>>  guests."  —  Page  44. 


A   SAINT.  45 

poorly  furnished  with  a  few  wooden  chairs,  a 
square  table,  and  a  sofa.  In  one  corner  a  half- 
open  door  gave  to  view  an  altar  covered  with  a 
smoke-stained  cloth  ;  it  was  there,  no  doubt,  that 
the  priors  said  their  prayers.  Another  door, 
opposite  and  wide  open,  showed  two  more  con- 
necting rooms,  each  with  an  iron  bed,  wooden 
chairs,  and  wash-basins  standing  on  rickety 
bureaus.  The  red-tiled  floors  were  not  even 
polished  ;  the  woodwork  of  the  doors  and  the 
window  frames  was  cracked  and  defaced,  but  the 
landscape  seen  from  the  latter  was  really  glo- 
rious. On  a  height  directly  opposite  was  a 
village  with  houses  close  together,  and  from  this 
village  to  the  monastery  a  marvellous  vegetation 
clothed  the  slope,  —  no  longer  the  gloomy  cy- 
presses of  the  other  side,  but  oaks,  whose  green 
foliage  was  turning  crimson ;  while  farther  down, 
in  the  valley  which  lay  to  the  southward,  were 
other  signs  of  cultivation,  and  olive-trees  inter- 
spersed among  the  oaks.  Evidently  the  monks 
st landed  in  this  Thebaid  had  toiled  there. 
Beyond  this  oasis  solitude  and  desolation  re- 
appeared, sterner  than  before,  darkly  frowned 
upon  by  the  highest  peak  of  the  Pisan  moun- 
tains, that  of  Verruca,  where  a  ruined  castle  is 
still  crumbling,  once  the  stronghold  of  some  lord 
of  the  soil,  against  whose  attacks  the  square 
bastion  which  defends  the  convent  on  this  side 
was  doubtless  built.     This  little  square  redoubt 


46  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

was  outlined,  with  its  crenelated  bastion  in  red 
stone,  before  the  window  at  which  we  stood,  and 
against  the  blue  of  a  sky  now  flecked  with  rosy 
vapor.  My  companion  was  no  longer  disposed 
to  jest,  being  struck,  as  I  was,  to  the  depths  of 
his  artistic  nature,  by  the  graceful  severity  of 
that  horizon  on  which  had  rested  the  eves,  lon<r 
closed,  of  many  monks,  some  thinking  only  of  an- 
other world,  others  beholding  in  the  rosy  sky  so 
softly  roseate  the  mirage  of  an  earthly  paradise, 
others  again,  ambitious  and  lordly,  dreaming  amid 
this  silence  of  a  cardinal's  hat,  or  it  may  be,  of 
the  tiara,  and  then  —  "  the  silence  vast  and  fath- 
omless of  death." 

That  line  in  the  "  Contemplations "  came  to 
my  memory,  as  it  ever  does  in  all  encounters 
with  the  past,  when  I  feel  the  shock  of  a  sensa- 
tion, which  is  almost  agony,  produced  by  too 
close  a  contact  with  that  which  once  was  but 
never  shall  be  again.  It  lasted  barely  a  minute, 
but  during  that  minute  the  ancient  life  of  the 
old  monastery  lay  spread  before  my  eyes,  incar- 
nate in  the  humble  or  the  ambitious  dreams  of 
those  who  had  stood  where  I  was  standing,  the 
princes  of  that  cloister,  whose  sole  representative 
was  an  old  abbe"  with  ragged  cassock  and  rusty 
shoes,  who,  breaking  the  silence,  said  to  us  :  — 

"  The  view  is  fine,  is  it  not  ?  I  have  lived 
forty  years  in  this  convent  without  ever  leaving 
it,  but  I  never  weary  of  that  view." 


Many  monks,  some  thinking  only  of  another  world."  —  Page  W. 


A   SAINT.  47 

"Forty  years!"  I  exclaimed,  almost  against 
my  will.  "  Without  ever  leaving  the  convent ! 
Surely  you  have  made  a  few  journeys  ?  " 

"  True,  so  I  have,  —  two  in  all,"  he  answered, 
"  each  of  six  days.  I  went  to  Milan,  my  own 
city,  when  my  sister  was  dying  and  wished  me 
to  bring  her  the  last  sacraments.  Poor,  sainted 
angel !  And  I  went  to  Pome  when  my  old  mas- 
ter Cardinal  Peloro  received  the  hat —  Yes," 
he  continued,  looking  fixedly  into  space,  "  I 
came  here  in  1845.  How  beautiful  Monte- 
Chiaro  was  then !  What  masses  were  sung ! 
To  have  seen  this  convent  as  I  once  saw  it,  and 
to  see  it  as  I  now  see  it  is  to  look  upon  a  body 
without  a  soul  where  all  was  youth  and  life  — 
But  patience,  patience  !  '  Multa  renascentur 
quae  jam  cecidere,  cadentque  quae  nunc  sunt 
in  honore.'  Now,  gentlemen,  I  must  leave  you 
to  order  your  dinner.  Luigi  will  bring  up  your 
valises.  With  him,  remember,  patience,  patience. 
You  must  shut  your  eyes  and  commend  your- 
selves to  God ! " 

With  this  advice  and  quotation  Dom  Griffi 
left  us,  and  he  had  scarcely  crossed  the  threshold 
of  the  door  before  Philippe  threw  himself  into  a 
chair  with  that  eternal,  sneering  laugh  of  his. 

"  Upon  my  word,"  he  cried,  "  that  grotesque 
old  fellow  was  alone  worth  the  journey." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  find  grotesque  in 
what   the   priest  has  said  or  done,"  I  replied. 


48  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

"  He  told  us  in  the  simplest  way  of  the  changes 
in  the  convent,  which  must  be  a  great  grief  to 
him,  and  which  he  bears  with  the  hope  of  a  true 
believer.  I  am  nearly  fifteen  years  older  than 
you,  I  have  been  about  the  world  as  you  are 
going  now,  in  pursuit  of  many  a  chimera,  and  I 
have,  alas,  learned  to  know  that  there  is  nothing- 
wiser,  nothing  nobler  here  below  than  a  man 
who  works  at  one  work,  with  the  same  ideal,  in 
the  same  corner  of  this  earth." 

"Amen  !"  added  my  young  companion,  laugh- 
ing louder  still.  "  I  agree  to  it  all !  the  chanted 
masses,  his  master  the  cardinal,  the  sainted  soul 
of  his  sister,  and  jostling  among  them  that  cpuo- 
tation  from  Horace,  and  his  functions  as  an  inn- 
keeper !  By  the  bye,  we  shall  pay  him  well  for 
his  hospitality.  This  miserable  hole,"  dragging 
me  by  the  arm  into  the  first  bedroom,  "is  worth, 
I  should  say,  about  a  franc  a  night.  But,"  he 
added  witli  sarcastic  consideration,  "  since  my 
remarks  displease  you,  my  dear  master  —  " 

Queer  fellow  !  I  cannot  better  describe  the 
sensation  he  produced  in  me  than  to  say  it  was 
that  of  a  blind  which  creaks  in  the  wind.  At 
each  new  impression  his  nerves  gave  forth  a 
rasping  note.  But  the  most  disconcerting  and 
puzzling  thing  of  all,  on  which  I  think  I  have 
scarcely  dwelt  enough,  was  the  flame  of  intellect 
running  through  these  whimsical  outbreaks  of  a 
petulant  and  ill-bred  child.     I  omitted  to   say 


A   SAINT.  49 

how,  daring  the  journey,  he  had  amazed  me  by 
two  or  three  remarks  on  the  sreoloincal  construe- 
tion  of  the  country  through  which  we  were  pass- 
ing ;  and  now,  going  out  upon  a  balcony  which 
served  for  both  rooms  and  looked  toward  the 
redoubt  which  protected  the  abbey,  he  began  to 
talk  of  Florentine  architecture  like  one  who  had 
studied  it  well  in  books,  and  also  with  his  eyes, 
—  two  forms  of  study  seldom  combined.  This 
knowledge,  quite  other  than  that  his  mission  had 
prepared  me  to  expect,  showed,  in  addition  to  his 
surprising  acquaintance,  which  I  had  also  detected, 
with  contemporary  literature  both  high  and  low, 
an  amazing  suppleness  of  intellect.  But  this  in- 
tellect seemed  to  hang  to  him  like  a  jewel,  per- 
haps I  had  better  say  an  instrument.  It  was 
something  worn  outside  of  him.  It  was  not  he 
himself.  He  possessed  it,  but  it  did  not  possess 
him  ;  it  helped  him  neither  to  believe  nor  to 
love.  I  compared  him,  involuntarily,  to  the 
very  man,  Pom  Griffi,  at  whom  he  had  been 
scoffing.  Certainly  the  poor  monk  could  never 
shine  through  intellectual  subtlety,  but  lie  con- 
veyed an  instant  impression  of  sincere  and 
single-minded  devotion  to  his  mission,  to  his 
watch  over  the  beloved  convent  uutil  the  longed- 
for  return  of  his  brethren.  Comparing  the  two, 
which,  I  asked  myself,  was  the  young  man, 
which  the  old  man,  if  youth  consists  in' grasping 
an  ideal  with  the  force  of  an  invincible   will  ? 

4 


4108 


50  PASTELS    OF    MEN. 

However,  such  as  he  was,  made  up  of  irony  and 
precocious  nihilism,  my  young  companion  was 
consistent  with  himself.  He  was  a  complete 
antithesis  to  the  poor  priest  self-devoted  to  the 
care  of  an  empty  monastery,  but  the  antithesis 
was  frank  and  genuine,  the  opposition  of  the 
present  half  of  our  century  to  the  simple  and 
pious  spirit  of  former  times.  But,  I  asked  my- 
self again,  was  I  not  equally  unfortunate,  even 
more  so, —  I,  whose  life  was  being  spent  in  the 
effort  to  comprehend  fully  both  the  criminal 
charm  of  negation  and  the  splendors  of  devout 
faith  without  ever  remaining  at  one  or  the  other 
of  these  two  poles  of  the  human  spirit  ? 

These  reflections  were  more  importunate  still 
when  I  found  myself  seated  about  seven  o'clock 
before  the  meal  which  the  abbe'  had  ordered  for 
us  in  the  large  hall,  formerly,  as  he  told  us,  the 
refectory  of  the  convent.  A  brass  lamp  of  the 
old  shape,  with  three  wicks  and  the  accessories 
of  snuffer,  pricker,  and  extinguisher  dangling 
by  little  chains  of  the  same  metal,  gave  a  smoky 
light  to  one  corner  of  an  enormous  table,  on 
which  were  glass  decanters  bearing  the  arms  of 
the  convent.  Each  of  us  had  two  beside  him ; 
one  filled  with  wine,  the  other  with  water. 
These  were  the  bottles  which  formerly  doled  out 
to  the  monks  the  parsimonious  amount  of  liquid 
allowed  to  their  thirst.  A  dish  of  fresh  figs  and 
another   of  grapes    were   there  for  our  dessert. 


A   SAINT.  51 

The  soup  was  already  served  in  plates  awaiting 
us,  while  goat's  cheese,  raw  ham,  stale  bread,  and 
boiled  chestnuts,  in  other  plates,  made  up  the  bill 
of  fare,  the  frugality  of  which  incited  the  old 
monk  to  another  Latin  quotation  of  the  same 
order  as  its  predecessor.  He  had  said  the  Beue- 
dicite  as  he  sat  down  with  us.  "  Castanet  molles 
et  pressi  copia  lactis,"  he  added,  pointing  to  the 
dishes  which  illustrated  Virgil's  lines. 

"  I  expected  that,"  muttered  Philippe  in  my 
ear.  Then  he  began,  in  his  most  serious  man- 
ner, to  discourse  to  Dom  Griffi  of  the  food  of  the 
ancients.  I  feared,  and  not  without  reason,  that 
this  apparent  amiability  was  leading  up  to  some 
jest. 

"  When  you  have  no  guests  do  you  dine  alone, 
Father  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Xo,"  said  the  abbe ,  "  there  are  two  of  the 
brotherhood  still  in  the  convent.  They  left  us 
seven.  Four  died  of  grief  immediately  after  the 
suppression.  We  were  all  ill  and  we  nursed 
each  other  as  best  we  could.  God  was  not  will- 
ing we  should  all  disappear." 

"  But  when  you  and  the  two  friars  are  no 
longer  here,  what  then  ?"  persisted  Philippe. 

"  Con  gallo  e  seuza  gallo,  Dio  fa  giorno,"  said 
the  priest,  a  slight  cloud  crossing  his  face,  which, 
however,  was  instantly  dispersed;  the  question 
touched  him  cruelly  in  the  most  sensitive  spot  of 
his  whole  being.     "  With  or  without  the  cock 


52  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

God  sends   the  day,"  he  added  translating  the 
Italian  words. 

"  But  how  do  you  occupy  your  time,  Father  ? " 
I  said  to  him,  full  of  eager  curiosity  in  presence 
of  a  faith  so  deep  that  1  could  almost  fancy  my- 
self before  a  man  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

"  Ah !  I  have  no  leisure  at  all,"  exclaimed 
Dom  Griffi.  "  Such  as  you  see  me  now,  I  have 
the  convent  to  look  after  and  all  the  adjacent 
land  to  farm.  I  employ  fifteen  peasant  families. 
From  early  morning  it  is  one  long  procession  to 
my  cell ;  they  never  leave  me  a  minute  to  my- 
self, —  accounts  to  settle,  confessions  to  receive, 
medicine  wanted  !  I  'm  a  bit  of  a  doctor,  of  a 
chemist,  a  judge,  and  even  a  schoolmaster.  Yes, 
I  teach  the  children.  Luigi  is  one  of  my  schol- 
ars ;  he  does  n't  do  me  credit,  but  he  's  a  very 
good  fellow.  Moreover,  I  am  a  guide,  and  there 
are  strangers  to  show  about  the  convent — well, 
not  many ." 

"  1  met  two  English  ladies  at  Pisa,  —  Miss 
Dobson  and  Miss  Roberts,  —  who  had  just  come 
from  Monte-Chiaro,"  I  remarked. 

"  Ha,  ha  ! "  he  exclaimed,  laughing,  —  "  my  two 
red  mullets.  I  call  them  so  from  the  color  of 
their  hair.  They  are  Protestants,  but  good  souls 
all  the  same.  Lascia  fare  a  Dio,  cite  santo 
vecchio,  —  '  Let  God  mauage  things,  he  's  the 
oldest  of  the  saints.'  They  are  going  to  Pome. 
I   said   to  them,  '  Saint   Peter  is  a  fisherman ,  I 


A   SAINT.  5 


o 


hope  he  may  catch  my  red  mullets  in  his  net.' 
England  is  getting  nearer  to  God  every  day,"  he 
added,  rubbing  his  hands,  "ever  since  Puseyism. 
Perhaps  you  young  men  will  see  the  great  sight 
of  all  Christians  under  one  father.  After  that 
Antichrist,  then  the  Last  Judgment,  and  then  — 
Peace ! " 

His  eyes  shone  with  a  visionary  light  as  he 
said  the  words.  Xo  believer  in  the  Millennium 
was  ever  more  fervent.  Philippe  and  I  looked 
at  each  other.  I  saw  the  satire  in  my  compan- 
ion's eyes,  and  I  heard  him,  with  amazement, 
make  answer :  — 

"  In  France  also  Catholicism  is  making  great 
progress,  Father.  We  have  had  many  edifying 
examples  of  holiness,  —  more  especially  in  an 
author  named  Baudelaire,  and  several  of  his 
disciples.  They  are  so  humble  that  they  call 
themselves  decadents.  They  write  hymns  and 
chant  them  to  each  other.  They  publish  news- 
papers which  preach  the  word.  What  can  be 
more  edifying  than  such  a  faith  in  early  youth  ?" 

"  I  had  not  heard  of  them,"  said  the  father. 
"  Decadents,  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  Philippe,  "  those  who  descend, 
who  seek  those  below  —  " 

"I  understand,"  said  the  father;  "they  are 
repentant,  and  they  do  right.  We  have  a  prov- 
erb:  Non  bisogna  aver  paura  c7ie  de'  suoi  peccavi 
—  'No  need  to  fear  any  but  our  own  sins.' ' 


54  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

"  Dear  Father,"  I  said,  to  cut  short  ray  com- 
panion's foolish  joke,  our  frugal  supper  being 
now  ended,  "can  we  not  see  to-night  those 
frescos  of  Gozzoli  the  English  ladies  told  me 
of?" 

"  You  cannot  judge  them  very  well  by  this 
light,"  said  Dom  Griffi.  Then,  carried  away  by 
the  pleasure  of  exhibiting  his  discovery,  he 
added,  "  But  you  can  see  them  again  to-morrow. 
Ah !  when  the  monks  come  back  how  delighted 
they  will  be  with  those  paintings  !  I  hope  to 
find  time  to  clean  them  thoroughly  this  winter. 
Luigi,  go  and  get  the  taper  stick  in  the  chapel ; 
here,  take  the  key,"  and  he  drew  from  his  pocket 
a  bunch  of  enormous  keys.  "  We  have  to  lock 
every  door,"  he  said,  "  for  the  peasants  are 
coming  and  going  at  all  hours.  They  are  worthy 
souls,  but  you  ought  never  to  tempt  the  poor." 

Luigi  soon  returned,  bearing  a  sort  of  rush- 
light tied  to  the  end  of  a  stick,  evidently  used  to 
liijht  the  altar  candles.  The  monk  rose  from 
table,  repeated  once  more  the  Benedicte,  and 
then  with  the  gayety  of  a  child,  he  took  the 
brass  lamp  by  the  ring  at  the  top  and  said,  laugh- 
ing :  "  I  march  before  you,  and  as  we  shall  pass 
through  an  actual  labyrinth  you  can  say  with 
Dante,  '  Per  la  impacciata  via,  retro  al  mio 
duca.' " 

"  More  Dante  !  "  whispered  Philippe.  "  These 
fellows  can't  do  a  thing,  they  can't  even  eat  a  bit 


A   SAINT.  55 

of  green  cheese,  tlieir  infernal  gorgonzola,  with- 
out being  reminded  of  a  line  by  that  fool  of  a 
Florentine  whose  real  name  was  Durante,  that 
is,  Durand.  Did  you  know  that  ?  Valles  in- 
vented the  joke.  The  Divine  Comedy  signed 
Durand  !  I  've  a  great  mind  to  get  it  off  on  our 
host." 

"  You  are  out  of  your  reckoning,"  I  replied. 
"  I  have  told  you  already  how  I  admire  that 
great  poet." 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  but  that 's 
on  your  devout,  reverent,  and  sacrificial  side.  As 
for  me,  as  you  must  see,  I  belong  solely  to  the 
generation  of  the  iconoclasts  —  that 's  all  the 
difference  between  us." 

While  we  exchanged  these  remarks  in  a  low 
voice  the  cassock  of  our  guide,  fantastically 
illumined  by  the  lamp,  whose  unprotected  flames 
flickered  in  the  draughts,  plunged  deeper  and 
deeper  into  interminable  corridors.  We  went 
up  one  staircase  and  down  others.  Sometimes 
we  threaded  the  arcades  of  a  cloister.  Now  and 
then  a  night-bird  rose  at  our  approach,  or  a  cat 
fled  away  silent  and  terrified.  If  there  had  been 
but  a  single  gleam  of  moonlight  the  romantic 
mystery  of  our  walk  across  that  vast  convent 
might  have  furnished  forth  a  nightmare.  As  it 
was,  I  evoked  in  thought  the  monks  of  other  ages 
who  had  glided  through  these  shadows  on  their 
way  to  prayer.     Our  guide  himself  seemed  set 


56  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

back  forty  years,  and  to  be  walking  the  corridors 
in  a  tile  of  his  brethren,  — young,  eager  in  his 
beliefs,  ardent  for  his  order.  What  memories 
must  stir  within  him  now  that  he  lived  alone  in 
that  deserted  building  !  And  yet  he  was  gay, 
almost  jovial  in  the  midst  of  this  disaster, 
through  the  vigor  of  his  faith.  What  power  lies 
in  that  mysterious  phenomenon  which  constitutes 
belief, —  absolute,  complete,  invincible  belief? 
Dom  Griffi  paused  before  a  door.  He  searched 
through  the  jailer's  bunch  which  he  held  in  his 
left  hand  for  another  key.  The  old  door  creaked 
on  its  hinges,  and  we  entered  a  lofty  room  where 
the  trembling  light  of  the  lamp  wicks  vaguely 
lighted  two  walls  painted  in  fresco,  and  a  third 
which  at  first  sight  I  took  to  be  all  white- 
washed. 

"  My  son,"  said  the  abbe-  to  Luigi,  "  give  me 
the  rushlight ;  I  will  light  it.  You  will  let  the 
grease  fall  on  my  cassock,  —  which  I  am  sure 
doesn't  need  it." 

He  set  the  lamp  on  the  floor  and  looked  care- 
fully to  the  fastening  of  the  taper  at  the  end  of 
the  pole.  Then,  having  lighted  the  little  wick, 
he  began  to  move  the  flame  here  and  there  along 
the  wall ;  and  as  if  by  magic  divers  portions 
of  the  master's  work  became  alive  in  its  bright- 
ness. As  the  old  monk  moved  the  tiny  flame 
from  spot  to  spot  along  the  first  wall  we  saw  the 
bleeding  wound  of  Christ,  the  hand  of  the  apostle 


Having  lighted  the  little  wick,  he  began  to  move  the  flame 
here  .'11111  there  along  the  wall."  —  Pagi    56. 


A   SAINT.  57 

wounding  again  that  bloody  wound,  the  raouni- 
ful  look  of  the  Saviour,  the  blending  of  remorse 
and  curiosity  on  the  features  of  Saint  Thomas,  and 
the  angels  bearing  to  heaven  the  instruments  of 
the  Passion,  their  ethereal  faces  wet  with  tears. 
On  the  other  wall  we  saw,  detail  by  detail,  as 
the  flame  showed  them,  the  green  tunic  and  the 
gold  embroideries  of  Gondoforus,  the  precious 
stones  of  the  vases  given  to  the  apostle,  while 
peacocks  displayed  their  occulated  tails  upon  the 
balconies,  parrots  of  every  color  swung  from  the 
trees,  and  great  lords  started  for  the  chase,  drag- 
ging leopards  by  chains  through  mountain  fast- 
nesses. And  still  the  little  flame  of  our  guide's 
torch  wandered  hither  and  thither  like  a  will  o' 
the  wisp.  As  it  passed  along,  each  spot  drawn  for 
an  instant  from  shadowy  vagueness  retreated 
into  the  void.  It  was  of  course  impossible  to 
judge  of  the  work  as  a  whole,  but  seen  thus  it 
had  a  charm  of  fantastic  strangeness  appropriate 
to  the  time  and  place,  —  all  the  greater  because 
Dom  Grifn,  in  exhibiting  the  two  frescos,  aban- 
doned himself  like  a  child  to  the  passionate  de- 
light they  afforded  him.  He  loved  to  look  at 
them,  as  a  miser  loves  to  handle  the  gold  be 
hoards.  "Were  they  not  his  own  creation  — his; 
the  precious  jewel  witli  which  he  had  enriched 
his  cherished  convent  ?  As  he  talked  of  them 
the  wrinkles  of  his  expressive  old  face  empha- 
sized his  words :  — 


58  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

"  See  the  finger  of  the  apostle  —  how  he  hesi- 
tates !  and  our  Lord's  gesture,  and  his  lips ; 
that  is  jhst  as  men  do  when  they  are  wounded 
and  the  doctor  touches  them.  Look  at  that  land- 
scape in  the  background ;  don't  you  recognize 
Verruca  and  the  hill  of  Monte-Chiaro  ?  See,  to 
the  right,  there,  are  the  windows  of  your  room. 
Those  dear  angels,  their  eyes  are  getting  smaller  ! 
They  weep,  but  they  don't  want  -to,  and  so  they 
wrinkle  up  their  noses  like  that.  And  there  's 
the  black  king;  look  at  his  earrings.  One  of 
our  fathers — who  died  here  after  the  suppres- 
sion, God  rest  his  soul !  —  made  a  few  excava- 
tions round  one  of  our  convents  near  Volterra,  and 
he  found  an  Etruscan  tomb,  and  in  it  were  ear- 
rings just  like  these,  lying  close  to  the  head  of  a 
skeleton.  I  have  them  now,  and  I  '11  show  them 
you.     Now,  here  —  " 

So  saying  he  turned  and  I  saw  him  direct  his 
taper  towards  the  wall  to  the  right  which  I  had 
hitherto  supposed  to  be  all  whitewashed.  The 
magic  flame  now  illumined  a  spot  in  that 
■whiteness  about  the  size  of  half  my  hand. 
Chance  had  willed  that  in  beqinnin^'  at  random 
to  clear  off  the  plaster  the  old  monk  had  un- 
covered just  half  the  face  of  a  Madonna,  —  the 
line  of  her  chin,  her  mouth,  nose,  and  eyes.  The 
smile  and  the  glance  of  the  Blessed  Virgin 
thus  appearing  in  the  midst  of  that  great 
white    field   grasped    the  mind  like    something 


A   SAINT.  59 

supernatural.  The  little  flame  flickered  a  trifle, 
attached  as  it  was  to  a  long  pole  in  the  hands  of 
an  old  man,  and  the  lips  of  the  Madonna  seemed 
to  move,  her  cheeks  breathed,  her  eyes  quivered. 
One  might  have  thought  a  living  woman  was 
there,  about  to  shake  off  that  shroud  of  plaster 
and  reveal  herself  to  our  eyes  in  the  untrammelled 
grace  of  her  youth.  The  father  was  silent  now, 
but  his  countenance  expressed  so  profound  a 
piety  of  admiration  that  I  comprehended  why 
it  was  he  had  not  hastened  to  remove  the 
plaster  from  the  rest  of  the  fresco.  His  guileless 
artistic  sense  and  the  fervor  of  his  faith  made 
him  feel  the  poesy  of  that  divine  smile  and  those 
divine  eyes,  imprisoned  as  it  were  in  their  coarse 
casing.  We  were  all  silent.  Philippe  was 
vanquished  for  the  moment  by  the  force  of  the 
impression,  and  I  heard  him  murmur  in  a  low 
voice  :  — 

"  Why,  it 's  Edgar  Poe  —  it 's  a  bit  of  Shelley  ! " 

The  abbe7,  who  certainly  had  never  heard  the 
name  of  either  of  those  writers,  said  naively, 
without  suspicion  that  he  was  making  a  just 
criticism  on  the  sentiment  of  his  young  guest:  — 

"No,  it's  a  Gozzoli.  I'll  prove  it  to  you  in 
Vasari.  And  what  do  you  suppose  is  behind  it  ? 
Undoubtedly  the  miracle  of  the  girdle." 

"What  miracle  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"Dear  me!"  he  said,  with  visible  amazement. 
"Did  you  not  see  in   the  Cathedral  at    Pistoia 


60  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

the  girdle  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  which  she  threw 
to  Saint  Thomas  after  her  assumption  ?  He  was 
absent  when  she  rose  to  heaven  in  presence  of 
the  other  apostles.  He  came  back  three  days 
later,  and  as  he  still  doubted  the  truth  of  every- 
thing he  did  not  see,  the  Madonna  was  so  good 
as  to  let  fall  her  girdle  before  his  eyes,  that  he 
might  never  doubt  again." 

He  related  this  legend  (which  proves,  we  may 
remark  in  a  parenthesis,  that  early  Christianity 
foresaw  even  the  analysts  and  their  possible  sal- 
vation) as  he  extinguished  the  rushlight,  which 
he  gave  to  Luigi ;  then  he  locked  the  door. 

The  single-minded  conviction  with  which  he 
spoke  of  the  miracle  proved  to  me  that  he  lived 
in  supernaturalism  just  as  the  rest  of  us,  sons  of 
our  century,  live  in  restlessness  and  irony,  I 
could  not  help  comparing  him,  in  a  way,  to  the 
fragment  of  the  fresco  he  had  shown  us  on  the 
third  wall.  That  uncovered  bit  of  painting  suf- 
ficed to  make  the  whole  blank  sheet  of  plaster  a 
living  picture,  and  he,  Dom  Griffi,  sufficed  by  his 
sole  presence  to  make  that  convent  desert  a  living 
scene.  He  was  indeed  the  soul  of  it,  —  I  i'elt  this 
now,  — and  a  soul  which  represented,  in  the  exact 
sense  of  that  word,  the  souls  of  his  absent  breth- 
ren. In  my  childhood  I  had  seen  an  officer  of 
the  Grand  Army  passing  along  the  pavement  of 
the  town  in  which  I  was  brought  up.  The  old 
hero  limped,  for  he  was  wounded  at  Leipzig ;  he 


A    SAINT.  61 

was  poor,  and  his  ribbon  hung  upon  a  threadbare 
coat.  Yet  he  was  to  me  the  whole  epic  of  the 
Empire,  for  I  knew  that  the  Emperor  had  deco- 
rated him  with  his  own  hand.  I  felt  the  same 
impression  now  as  I  followed  Dom  Griffi.  He 
bore  his  whole  order  in  the  folds  of  the  old  cas- 
sock which  Luigi  took  such  ill  care  of.  Such  is 
the  grandeur  which  all  absolute  abdication  of 
our  own  personality  for  the  furtherance  of  some 
high  and  noble  work  bestows  upon  us.  We 
renounce  self,  and  in  so  doing  we  magnify  it  by 
a  law  which  modern  society,  attached  to  vulgar 
individualism,  strangely  ignores.  Man  is  of  no 
value  except  as  he  immolates  himself  to  an  idea. 
What  is  an  order,  what  is  an  army,  if  not  an  or- 
ganized idea  which  assimilates  to  itself  thousands 
of  existences  ?  Each  of  these  existences  lias  a 
share  in  the  united  forces  of  all  the  others. 
What  would  Dom  Griffi  have  been  in  his  con- 
vent ?  Probably  an  antiquary  of  narrow  mind, 
who  might  have  catalogued  some  museum  ;  for 
no  sooner  had  his  enthusiasm  abated,  as  we  made 
our  way  back  to  our  apartments,  than  he  fell 
into  the  jargon  of  a  collector  who  forgets  the 
fundamental  sentiment  of  a  work  of  art  in  a 
discussion  of  its  accessories,  its  resemblances, 
and  its  authenticity. 

"A  great  deal  has  been  written,"  he  said,  "on 
this  very  subject  of  the  girdle  of  the  Madonna, 
and   Saint  Thomas.     You  will  iiud  in  the  Acad- 


62  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

emy  at  Florence  a  charming  bas-relief  of  Luca 
della  Eobbia,  where  the  Madonna,  surrounded  by 
angels,  is  giving  her  girdle  to  the  apostle.  Fran- 
cesco Granacci  treated  the  subject  twice  ;  so  did 
Fra  Paolino,  of  Pistoia,  and  Taddeo  Gaddi,  and 
Giovanni  Antonio  Sogliani,  and  Bastiano  Maiu- 
ardi,  —  the  last  at  Santa  Croce.  My  red  mullets 
sent  me  photographs  of  all  these  pictures.  I 
am  certain  our  Benozzino's  is  best  of  all,  judging 
only  by  that  tiny  bit  of  the  Virgin's  head.  But 
please  come  into  my  cell,  and  I  will  show  you 
those  earrings  and  the  little  collection  of  Dom 
Pio  Schedone." 

We  accepted  the  invitation,  Philippe  perhaps 
from  archaeological  instinct,  and  I  from  curiosity 
to  see  the  actual  objects  among  which  the  old 
monk  passed  his  life.  The  disorderly  appear- 
ance of  the  first  room  into  which  he  took  us 
revealed  the  neglect  of  the  comical  servant  who 
answered  to  the  name  of  Luigi.  Piles  of  books 
were  scattered  about,  the  size  and  binding  of 
which  proclaimed  them  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church.  In  one  corner  were  tools,  hammers,  a 
pair  of  pincers,  and  a  box  filled  with  nails  and 
screws  and  old  iron,  showing  that  Dom  Grifh" 
was  able  to  dispense  with  workmen  if  mending 
were  needed  for  locks  or  furniture.  Lemons 
were  drying  on  a  plate.  Flasks,  with  the  straw 
much  blackened  and  soiled,  seemed  to  contain 
samples   of  the   last   harvest   of  oil   and   wine. 


A   SAINT.  63 

One  of  those  brown  earthenware  pots  which 
Tuscan  women  call  "  scaldini,"  and  which  they 
fill  with  charcoal  to  warm  their  hands  as  they 
hold  them  by  the  handles,  was  the  sole  sign  of 
comfort  in  the  brick-floored  room,  where  a  jet 
black  cat  was  lazily  washing  herself.  Perhaps 
some  English  lady,  grateful  for  his  kindness,  had 
sent  the  poor  monk  the  little  silver  teapot,  sole 
sign  of  elegance  in  this  rustic  capharnaiim, 
which  Luigi  had  taken  good  care  not  to  clean, 
and  which  now  stood  blackening  on  an  upper 
shelf.  A  tall  crucifix,  resting  on  its  base,  over- 
looked the  table,  which  was  piled  with  sheets  of 
paper  covered  in  a  large  and  firm  hand-writing. 

"  Those  are  my  master's  sermons,  which  are 
sent  to  me  to  copy,"  said  Dorn  Griffi.  "  The  good 
cardinal  is  blind,  and  he  wants  to  have  his  work 
printed  before  his  death.  He  is  eighty-seven. 
Ah  !  his  writing  is  terribly  perfidious"  added  the 
abbd,  using  the  Italian  idiom;  "and  besides,  I 
have  so  little  time.  Happily,  I  can  do  with 
only  four  hours'  sleep.  Come,  Nero,  mio  micino, 
mio  mutzi,  get  out  of  that  chair,  get  out  of  that 
chair."  He  spoke  to  the  cat  as  Pasquale  had 
spoken  to  his  mare,  and  Nero,  apparently  com- 
prehending him,  jumped  from  the  chair  to  the 
pile  of  papers  which  contained  the  old  cardinal's 
claims  to  posthumous  glory. 

"  Good  ;  sit  you  there,"  he  said  to  me  ;  "  and 
you   here,   Signor  Filippo."     He  had  asked  our 


G4  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

Christian  names  at  the  beginning  of  dinner  so 
that  he  might,  with  the  charming  familiarity  of 
his  country,  call  us  by  them.  "  Dear  me  !"  he 
went  on,  looking  about  him,  "  where  is  that  ras- 
cally box  ?  I  see  it,  under  the  volume  of 
Fathers  which  I  took  down  the  other  day  to  find 
a  clause  in  the  treatise  of  Saint  Irenreus  against 
the  Gnostics.  The  question  was  about  certain 
Basilideans  who  wished  to  avoid  martyrdom 
on  the  ground  that  we  ought  not  to  make  known 
our  ideas  to  the  common  people.  Ah !  pride, 
pride !  You  '11  find  pride  at  the  bottom  of  all 
the  heresies  and  all  the  sophisms.  Faith  is  a 
great  thing,  and  it  is  so  easy  and  simple  too. 
Here  's  the  box.  It  is  open  ;  I  never  lock  any- 
thing in  this  room,  because  it  belongs  to  me  and 
not  to  the  convent.  Where  are  those  earrings  ? " 
While  speaking  he  had  disinterred  a  leather 
case  or  coffer,  the  lock  of  which  was  so  compli- 
cated that  in  case  of  injury  it  would  have  defied 
the  poor  workmen  of  this  remote  spot.  The  cover 
raised,  we  saw  that  the  box  contained  a  quantity 
of  small  articles  wrapped  in  paper  and  carefully 
ticketed.  The  circular  shape  of  most  of  these 
packages  clearly  indicated  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  late  Dom  Pio's  collection  consisted  of 
coins  or  medals.  I  noticed  with  some  surprise 
that  the  workmanship  of  the  Etruscan  earrings 
was  extremely  delicate.  Taking  up  at  random 
one  of  the  little  round  packages,  I  read  on  the 


"That's  a  very  fine  coin,  and  extremely  rare."  —  Page  65. 


A    SA1XT.  65 

paper  wrapping  the  words,  "Julii  Csesarius 
aureus,"  and  on  examining  the  piece  of  gold 
I  reeoguized  it  as  genuine.  I  passed  it  to 
Philippe,  who  called  my  attention  to  a  head  of 
Mark  Antony  on  the  reverse,  observing  :  — 
"  That 's  a  very  fine  coin,  and  extremely  rare." 
I  took  up  a  second,  and  a  third,  and  then  I 
came  with  still  greater  amazement  upon  a  Bru- 
tus, the  value  of  which  I  happened  to  know, 
in  this  wise.  When  selecting  my  New  Year's 
presents  in  the  preceding  year  I  chanced  to 
think  of  offering  to  certain  ladies  with  whom  I 
had  dined  little  coins  or  medals  to  hang  upon 
their  bracelets  ;  and  my  dear  friend  Gustave  S., 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  numismatists  of 
the  present  day,  was  kind  enough  to  accompany 
me  to  a  dealer  who  makes  them  a  speciality. 
There  I  had  greatly  admired  the  gold  coin  which 
bears  the  head  of  the  younger  Brutus  on  one 
side,  and  on  the  other  that  of  the  elder.  My 
friend  could  not  restrain  a  smile  at  my  igno- 
rance when,  in  reply  to  my  remark  "  I  will  take 
this  one,"  the  dealer  said  "  Then  to  you,  mon- 
sieur, as  a  friend  of  Monsieur  S.,  it  shall  be  only 
thirteen  hundred  francs."  And  this  coin,  which 
thus  had  a  quotable  market  value,  was  here 
among  fifty  or  sixty  others  in  Dora  Pio's  collec- 
tion !  An  exclamation  escaped  me  as  I  showed 
it  to  Philippe,  and   told  him  what  I  knew  of  its 

value. 

5 


G6  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

"  I  can  easily  believe  it,"  he  said,  "  for  I  know 
something  of  numismatics  ;  see  how  well  pre- 
served it  is,  the  edge  not  worn." 

"  You  have  a  treasure,  Father,"  I  said  to 
Dom  Griffi,  who  was  listening  without  seeming 
to  take  our  words  seriously.  I  persisted,  how- 
ever, in  explaining  to  him  the  grounds  on  which 
I  could  myself  assure  him  of  the  value  of  at 
least  one  of  his  coins,  and  of  my  companion's 
ability  to  judge  of  the  rest. 

"  Dom  Pio  always  told  me  they  were  valuable," 
he  said,  his  face  gradually  changing  its  expression. 
"  He  had  picked  them  up  here  and  there  in  his 
various  excavations.  When  he  died,  poor  Pio, 
things  were  at  their  worst  with  us  ;  we  had  just 
been  scattered,  and  I  had  so  much  to  do  that  I 
nedected  to  have  the  collection  examined  bv 
Professor  Marchetti,  whom  you  may  have  met  at 
Pisa.  In  fact,  I  forgot  all  about  it,  and  if  it  had 
not  been  for  King  Gondoforus  and  his  jewels  I 
should  never  have  thought  of  looking  at  it.  It 
was  only  the  other  day,  while  rummaging  among 
these  old  books,  that  I  happened  to  remember  I 
had  seen  a  curious  pair  of  earrings  in  Dom  Pio's 
possession.  I  looked  in  his  box  and  found  them, 
and  now  I  have  happened  to  speak  of  them  to 
you.  Bless  me  ! "  he  continued,  rubbing  his 
hands.  "  I  do  hope  you  may  be  right.  There's 
a  terrace  near  the  tower  which  is  falling  to  ruin, 
and  the  government  won't  give  me  the  money 


A   SAINT.  67 

to  repair  it ;  four  thousand  francs  would  be 
euou'di  —  but  four  thousand  francs  !"  he  added, 
shaking  his  head  incredulously  as  he  looked  at 
the  coffer. 

"  If  I  were  you,"  I  remarked,  "  I  should  con- 
sult the  professor  you  mentioned,  Father;  for 
here  's  an  aureus  of  Domitiau  which  I  think  I 
have  seen  among  rare  coins." 

"  It  is  extremely  rare,"  said  Philippe,  examin- 
ing it ;  "  aud  so  is  tins  Dide  Julien,  and  that 
Didia  Clara  —  splendid  specimens  !  Probably 
some  peasant  found  the  treasure  of  a  Roman 
legion,  lost  in  battle  near  Volterra,  and  sold  the 
whole  to  Dom  Pio." 

"  If  that  were  so,"  said  the  abbe,  rubbing  his 
hands  again,  "  it  would  be  another  proof  of  how 
right  the  dear  cardinal  was  when  he  used  to  say, 
'  Dio  non  manda  mai  bocca  che  uon  mandi  cibo ' 
—  'Clod  doesn't  send  mouths  without  sending 
food.'  How  I  have  prayed  for  that  terrace ! 
That's  where  the  sick  brothers  used  to  walk  in 
the  sun  when  they  were  getting  well.  1 11  write 
to  Monsieur  Marchetti  to  come  and  pay  me  a 
visit  as  soon  as  he  is  able.  Ah !  he  is  a  friend 
of  mine ;  he  likes  to  come  to  Monte-Chiaro. 
To-morrow  morning  when  I  say  mass  I  shall 
thank  the  Lord  aud  pray  for  both  of  you.  Dear 
me !  I  had  almost  forgotten  to  tell  Luigi  to  be 
ready  to  serve  at  six,  for  at  seven  I  have  several 
appointments." 


68  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

"  Can't  you  understand,"  I  said  to  Philippe,  a 
little  later  as  I  wished  him  good-night,  "  how 
readily  certain  circumstances  —  like  these  for  in- 
stance —  appear  to  be  providential  ?  This  poor 
monk  wants  money  for  Ins  convent ;  he  prays 
to  God  with  all  his  might ;  two  strangers  prove 
to  him  that  he  has  the  money  in  his  own  hand." 

"  Oh,  the  blundering  of  chance  ! "   cried  Phil- 
ippe, shrugging  his  shoulders.     "Have  you  ever 
heard  of  any  young  man  of  talent  who  needed  a 
trifling  sum  of  money  to  put  him  in  the  way  of 
using  his  talents  and  found   it  ?     Did  any  great 
writer  ever  win  a  penny  in  a  lottery  ?     And  yet 
I've   known   rich    and  stupid  bourgeois  in  my 
province    whose    shares    in   the    Ville   de  Paris 
brought  them  in  as  much  as  two  hundred  thou- 
sand francs.     A  cousin  of  mine  left  me  a  share. 
Happily  I  sold  it.     Would  you  believe  that  it 
has  never  turned  up  but  once  in  ten  years  ?     It 
would  n't  have  given  me   six,  nor  two,  nor  even 
one  thousand  francs.     And  here's  this  imbecile 
old  cowl  who  will  get  his  six  thousand,  —  more, 
perhaps,  —  and  spend  them,  how  ?  in  repairing  a 
rotten  terrace  for   monks   who  will  never  come 
back  to  it !     Chamfort  said  the   world   was  the 
work  of  a  crazy  devil ;  he  had  better  have  said 
an  idiotic  one." 

"Meantime,"  I  remarked  with  pretended  petu- 
lance, as  though  I  were  speaking  to  a  small 
child,  —  to  avoid  showing  how  provoked  I  felt  at 


A   SAINT.  69 

what  was,  after  all,  a  justifiable  complaint,  — 
"  go  to  bed  and  to  sleep,  and  let  me  do  likewise." 
As  the  wind  had  risen,  —  a  melancholy  au- 
tumn wind,  —  blowing  gently,  yet  plaintively, 
about  the  convent,  I  found  a  certain  diffi- 
culty in  carrying  out  my  own  programme  and 
in  falling  asleep  on  the  rather  hard  bed  of 
the  late  priors.  I  heard  Philippe  Dubois  mov- 
ing about  his  room,  and  I  wondered  whether,  in 
spite  of  his  ironical  mood  (too  exaggerated  to  be 
perfectly  genuine),  he  was  not  touched  by  the 
noble  sight  our  host  had  shown  us  all  that  even- 
ing of  a  pious  and  self-devoted  life.  The 
priest's  remarks  on  the  providential  character  of 
certain  meetings  came  back  to  me.  Is  it  possi- 
ble to  think  deeply  and  sincerely  upon  our  own 
destiny  and  that  of  those  nearest  to  us  without 
a  dim  consciousness  or  intuition  that  a  spirit 
hovers  over  us  and  guides  us,  by  ways  that  are 
often  tortuous,  to  ends  of  which  we  have  no 
perception  ?  Above  all,  in  the  punishment  of 
our  faults,  does  not  this  mysterious  agent  reveal 
its  presence  ?  —  a  presence  recognized  by  the  mor- 
alists of  all  ages,  from  the  Greek  poets  who 
worshipped  Nemesis,  that  mysterious  universal 
equity,  to  Shakspeare  and  Balzac,  the  masters 
of  modern  art ;  for  is  not  their  work  controlled 
by  the  vision  of  a  final  and  mighty  justice  en- 
veloping human  life  ?  So  thinking,  I  began  to 
make  objections,  from  that  wretched  habit  of  see- 


70  TASTELS   OF   MEN. 

LDg  the  pros  and  cons,  which  we  cannot  get 
rid  of  as  easily  and  simply  as  our  good  host 
had  done.  I  thought  of  that  other  law,  the 
law  of  decadence,  which  requires  the  death  of 
all  things,  even  the  noblest  of  human  exist- 
ence, from  the  moral  being  of  a  convent  to  the 
masterpieces  of  a  glorious  art.  The  frescos  of 
Benozzo  were  just  recovered,  after  a  loss  of  four 
centuries,  only  to  disappear  again  in  a  hundred 
or  more  years,  destroyed  then  by  the  irresistible 
hand  of  Time.  Yes,  all  dies,  and  all  begins 
anew.  Dom  Griffi  had  spoken  of  the  Basilideans, 
of  their  subtle  theories  and  the  pride  which 
underlies  all  heresies.  I  remembered  the  aston- 
ishing analogy  which  struck  me,  when  I  studied 
the  doctrines  of  Alexandria,  between  those  fa- 
mous paradoxes  and  the  moral  maladies  of  our 
own  day.  My  young  companion  was  a  case  in 
point ;  had  he  not  maintained  to  me,  apropos  of 
the  relations  between  a  writer  and  the  public, 
precisely  that  sophism  of  falsehood  from  con- 
tempt which  was  dear  to  the  Gnostics  ?  I  heard 
him  even  then  pacing  his  room,  —  was  he  rest- 
less ?  was  he,  too,  discussing  problems  ?  — 
until  at  last,  in  the  midst  of  contradictory  argu- 
ments, I  fell  asleep ;  and  when  I  woke  in  the 
morning,  it  was  to  see  the  innocent  Luigi  stand- 
ing at  my  bed's  head  with  a  tray  on  which  was 
my  coffee ;  and  almost  at  the  same  moment  Dom 
Griffi  entered  the  room. 


A   SAINT.  71 

"Ah,  bravo  ! "  he  cried,  with  his  cheery  laugh  ; 
"  you  have  slept  well,  and  you  have  given  the  lie 
to  an  old  proverb,  Chi  dor  me  non  piglia  pcsci, — 
'  He  who  sleeps  does  n't  catcli  fish  ; '  for  a  peasant 
has  brought  you  some  fresh  trout  for  your  break- 
fast. As  for  Signor  Filippo,  he  was  off  early 
on  the  mountain.  When  I  returned  from  mass, 
about  half-past  six,  I  caught  sight  of  him  climb- 
ing beyond  the  village,  as  active  as  a  cat.  When 
you  are  ready  we  '11  go  and  see  the  Benozzos  by 
daylight.  By  that  time  Signor  Filippo  will  have 
got  back,  no  doubt.  You  shall  also  see  the  con- 
vent library.  Ah  .'  if  you  only  knew  how  rich 
it  was  before  the  first  suppression, —  I  mean 
that  of  Xapoleon  I.  Well,  patience,  patience,  — 
all  the  more  because  we  can  now  build  up  the 
terrace.     '  Multa  renascentur.'  " 

An  hour  later  1  was  dressed  and  I  had  drunk, 
not  without  some  grimaces,  the  coffee,  based  on 
chicory,  made  by  Luigi.  The  father  and  I  paid 
another  visit  to  the  Eastern  king,  Gondoforus, 
and  to  the  "  Smile  of  the  Virgin."  Dom  Griffi 
found  time  to  show  me  the  refectories,  small  and 
large,  the  library,  the  chapels,  the  fish-pond,  the 
cisterns,  and  the  narrow  garden  where  he  was 
raising  tiny  cypresses,  intending  to  plant  them 
out.  Philippe  was  still  absent.  Had  he  lost 
his  way?  Or  did  he  feel  an  antipathy  to  the 
monk's  society  and  conversation,  such  as  nervous 
temperaments  like  his  are  unable  to  control  ?     I 


72  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

should  have  asked  myself  these  questions  with 
some  indifference,  I  must  admit,  so  annoying 
had  his  flippancy  become  to  me,  if,  after  re- 
turning to  the  convent  about  eleven  o'clock,  1  had 
not  been  literally  terrified  by  the  result  of  a 
trifling  circumstance,  which  was  purely  acci- 
dental, and  which  I  myself  had  brought  about 
without  the  smallest  presentiment. 

Dom  Gritn  had  just  excused  himself.  He  was 
obliged  to  leave  me  alone  until  breakfast.  I  had 
no  books  with  me.  My  correspondence,  strange 
to  say,  was  written  up.  "  Suppose  I  look  over 
those  coins,"  I  thought,  and  thereupon  I  asked 
the  father  for  the  coffer,  which  he  kindly 
brought  to  me  himself.  Peaceably  installed  in 
my  bedroom,  I  unfolded  the  papers  one  by  one, 
admiring  the  profile  of  some  laurel-crowned  em- 
peror, or  the  figure  of  a  Victory,  I  don't  know 
why  the  fancy  took  me  to  examine  the  aureus 
of  Csesar  with  the  head  of  Antony.  I  looked 
for  it  among  the  others  and  could  not  find  it. 
I  took  out  the  packages  one  by  one,  but  the 
name  of  the  dictator  did  not  appear  on  any  one 
of  them.  "  We  must  have  folded  them  wrong," 
I  said  to  myself,  and  I  took  the  trouble  to  undo 
each  one.  The  coin  of  Csesar  was  not  among 
them ;  nor  that  of  Brutus  either.  I  think  I 
never  in  my  life  felt  an  agony  like  that  which 
gripped  my  heart  when  I  felt  certain  that  the 
two  coins,  worth  over  two  thousand  francs,  which 


"The  Abbe  saw  by  my  face  that  I  had  something 
important  to  say."  — Page  73. 


A    SAINT.  73 

had  been  in  the  box  the  night  before,  were  no 
longer  there.  I  had  held  them  in  my  own  hand. 
I  had  examined  them  with  a  glass;  I  had  my- 
self revealed  their  probable  price  to  Dom  Griffi, 
—  and  they  had  disappeared!  I  hoped  he  might 
have  put  them  aside,  in  consequence  of  what  we 
said,  so  as  to  send  them  to  Pisa  and  verify  their 
genuineness  as  soon  as  possible.  I  ran  to  his 
cell  at  the  risk  of  interrupting  him ;  it  was 
impossible  for  me  not  to  relieve  my  mind  instantly. 
Dom  Griffi  was  en^a^ed  in  recovering  a  debt 
from  a  tall  sun-burnt  rogue  of  a  peasant,  who  was 
holding  in  his  horny  hand  a  leather  pocket-book, 
from  which  he  drew,  with  comic  regret,  various 
paper  notes  of  the  value  of  five  and  ten  francs. 
The  abbd  saw  by  my  face  that  I  had  something 
important  to  say. 

"  Your  friend  is  not  ill  ? "  he"  incpuired  hastily. 

"  No  "  I  answered.  "  But  let  me  ask  you  one 
question,  Father.  Did  you  take  any  of  those 
gold  coins  we  were  handling  yesterday  from 
Dom  Pio's  box  ?  " 

"  None  ;  I  took  none,"  he  answered  simply ; 
"  the  box  remained  just  where  we  left  it." 

"  Great  God !  "  I  exclaimed  in  terror,  "  at  least 
two  are  missing,  and  the  most  valuable,  —  the 
(  ;i  sar  and  the  Brutus." 

I  had  no  sooner  uttered  the  words  than  I  felt 
the  full  force  of  their  bearing;,  No  one,  until 
our  arrival,  had  suspected  the  money  value  of 


74  PASTELS    OF   MEN. 

Dom  Pio's  collection.  The  Caesar  and  the  Bru- 
tus were  the  very  coins  we  had  chiefly  noticed. 
They  had  been  stolen.  Luigi  certainly  would 
not  have  selected  them  from  the  others,  nor 
would  any  of  the  peasants,  like  the  rustic  I  could 
see  at  this  moment  fingering  his  dirty  bank- 
bills  with  a  clumsy  hand.  On  the  other  hand,  I 
myself  could  not  be  suspected.  I  was  in  my 
bed  when  the  father  said  mass  and  his  room 
was  left  empty.  Since  then  he  and  I  had  been 
together.  The  flash  of  an  intolerable  evidence 
made  me  cry  out :  — 

"  No,  no,  it  is  impossible  ! " 

I  had  a  vision  of  Philippe,  tempted,  almost 
immediately  after  our  conversation  of  the  night 
before,  by  the  close  proximity  of  the  little  treas- 
ure. The  sound  of  his  steps  late  in  the  night 
echoed  in  my  memory,  and  brought  with  them  a 
dreadful  explanation.  He  had  said  so  much  to 
me  during  our  journey  of  his  great  need  of  a  sum 
of  money  to  support  him  while  starting  on  his 
career  in  Paris.  He  had  seen  that  sum  within 
his  grasp.  He  had  struggled,  struggled,  and 
then,  —  he  had  yielded.  He  was  guilty  of  this 
theft,  so  easy  to  commit,  and  so  doubly  infamous 
inasmuch  as  the  poor  old  monk  was  our  hospita- 
ble entertainer.  He  must  have  risen  a  little 
before  the  hour  of  service.  He  had  left  his 
chamber.  He  had  slipped  into  the  now  empty 
cell  of  his  host.     He  had  taken  the  two  coins 


A   SAINT.  75 

which  he  knew  to  be  most  valuable,  and  prob- 
ably others.  Then  he  had  left  the  convent  and 
walked  about  the  country,  no  doubt  to  give  some 
reason  for  his  early  rising  and  perhaps  to  quell 
the  au«unsh  which  must  have  shaken  him  :  for 
between  the  paradoxes  of  the  boldest  intellectual 
immorality  and  a  shameful  action  like  this  there 
is  a  gulf.  In  presence  of  this  horrible  and  over- 
whelming probability  I  was  seized  with  such 
emotion  that  my  legs  gave  way  and  I  was  forced 
to  sit  down,  while  Bom  Griffi  said  to  the  peasant 
with  his  customary  gentleness  :  — 

"Go  and  wait  in  the  corridor,  Peppe.  I'll 
call  you." 

When  we  were  alone  he  turned  to  me. 

"  Now,  my  son,"  he  began,  in  a  voice  I  had 
not  yet  heard  him  use,  not  the  voice  of  a  kindly 
host,  but  that  of  a  priest,  as  he  took  both  my 
hands  in  his,  "  look  me  in  the  face.  You  feel  that 
I  know  it  was  not  you,  do  you  not?  Say  noth- 
ing, explain  nothing,  and  make  me  a  promise  —  " 

"  To  compel  that  unhappy  man  to  make  resti- 
tution. Ah !  Father,  if  I  have  to  wrench  those 
coins  from  his  hands  or  deliver  him  myself  to 
the  police." 

"  You  have  not  guessed  my  meaning,"  he 
said,  shaking  his  head.  "  I  wish  you,  on  the 
contrary,  to  promise  me  on  your  honor  that  you 
will  not  let  drop  a  word  which  can  make  him 
8U3pect    that   you  have    discovered    the  loss   of 


76  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

those  coins,  —  not  one  word,  do  you  understand 
me  ?  and  not  one  gesture.  I  have  a  right  to  ask 
this,  have  I  not  ?  " 

"  I  don't  understand,"  I  began. 

"Pazienza,"  he  said,  employing  his  favorite 
word,  "  give  me  your  promise,  and  then  let  me 
finish  with  that  dreadful  Peppe.  Ah !  these 
peasants  will  he  the  death  of  me  before  I  get 
the  brothers  back  again.  They  squabble,  franc 
by  franc,  over  the  payment  of  their  leases  ;  but 
then,  you  know,  we  must  shut  our  eyes  and 
commend  ourselves  to  God.  Have  I  your 
promise  ?  " 

"  You  have,"  I  replied,  yielding  to  a  species 
of  authority  which  seemed  to  emanate  from  his 
person  at  that  moment. 

"  And  will  you  bring  the  coffer  to  me  at 
once  f 

"  I  will  fetch  it,  Father." 

In  spite  of  my  promise  I  could  scarcely  con- 
tain myself  when,  half  an  hour  after  this  inter- 
view, I  met  Philippe  Dubois  returning  from  his 
walk.  I  must  say  to  his  credit  that  his  face 
betrayed  an  inward  anxiety  which  would  have 
fully  convinced  me  of  his  guilt  had  I  retained  the 
slightest  doubt  of  it.  He  must  have  felt  sure 
of  his  secret  however,  for  my  second  examina- 
tion of  Dom  Pio's  collection  was  the  merest 
accident,  and  no  one  but  me  could  have  missed 
the  stolen  coins.     We  had  mentioned  them  too 


A    SAINT.  77 

briefly  for  the  monk  to  remember  their  names. 
Therefore  it  was  no  fear  of  discovery  that  gave 
so  gloomy  an  expression  of  uneasiness  to  that 
intelligent  brow  and  to  the  eyes  that  were  so 
lively  only  the  night  before.  I  guessed  that 
remorse  and  shame  were  rending  him.  He  was 
so  young,  in  spite  of  the  cynical  mask  he  chose 
to  wear,  so  near  to  the  hearth  of  home,  so  nur- 
tured in  provincial  loyalty  in  spite  of  his  intel- 
lectual depravity  !  He  noticed  my  depressed 
manner,  but  if  at  first  he  suspected  its  true 
cause  the  silence  I  maintained  in  accordance  with 
my  promise  must  have  reassured  him. 

"  I  have  had  a  splendid  walk,"  he  said,  with- 
out my  asking  him  a  single  question  as  to  how 
he  had  spent  the  morning.  "  Only  I  lost  my 
way,  and  have  got  back  too  late  to  go  over  the 
convent.  I  don't  regret  that ;  I  should  be  sorry 
to  spoil  the  impression  of  last  night  by  seeing 
those  frescos  in  broad  daylight.  At  what  time 
•do  we  start  ?  " 

"  About  half-past  two,"  I  replied. 

"  Then  "  said  he,  "  if  you  will  allow  me,  I  will 
go  and  fasten  my  valise." 

He  went  into  his  room  on  that  pretext,  and  I 
heard  him  walking  up  and  down  as  he  had  done 
during  the  night.  My  presence  was  evidently 
intolerable  to  him.  How  would  it  be  when  he 
met  the  abbd  ?  I  dreaded,  with  an  uneasiness 
which   was  actual   suffering,  the  moment  when 


78  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

we  should  all  three  be  seated  at  the  table  of  the 
refectory,  forced  to  converse,  the  priest  and  I 
knowing  what  we  did  know,  and  he  with  this 
weight  on  his  heart.  Curiosity,  I  must  admit, 
was  mingled  with  my  uneasiness.  In  demanding 
my  absolute  silence  Dom  Griffi  must  certainly 
have  had  some  purpose.  Did  he  hope  to  induce 
the  young  man  to  confess  privately,  and  so  hu 
miliate  him  as  little  as  possible  ?  Or,  witli  the 
divine  mercy  which  shone  in  his  eyes  —  the 
eyes  of  a  true  believer  —  had  he  resolved  to  for- 
give in  silence,  and  rely  upon  what  was  left  of 
Dom  Pio's  collection  to  rebuild  the  terrace  ?  At 
any  rate  the  breakfast  hour  came,  as  all  hours- 
come;  Dom  Griffi  called  us  himself  in  his  usual 
cheery  and  cordial  voice. 

"  Well,  Signor  Filippo,"  he  said,  grasping  both 
the  young  man's  hands  affectionately,  "  you 
must  be  hungry  after  your  walk." 

"  No,  Father,"  answered  Philippe,  who  seemed 
disturbed  by  the  friendly  pressure,  "but  I  am 
afraid  I  have  tak^n  cold." 

"Then  you  must  drink  a  little  of  my 'vino 
santo,'  "  replied  the  monk.  "  Do  you  know  why 
we  give  it  that  name  ?  We  hang  the  grapes  to 
dry  till  Easter-day,  and  then  we  press  them. 
There 's  a  Tuscan  proverb :  NelV  uva  sono  tre 
vinaccioli,  —  '  there  are  three  'seeds  in  a  grape  ; ' 
vno  di  sanita,  uno  di  letizia,  c  uno  di  ubria- 
chezza,  —  'one  of  health,  one  of  gayety,  one  of 


'■Grasping  both  the  young  man's  hands  affectionately."  —  Page  78. 


A   SAINT.  79 

intoxication. '     But  in  my  '  vino  santo '  there  are 
only  the  first  two." 

He  kept  up  a  series  of  cheerful  and  kindly 
remarks  throughout  the  meal,  which  consisted 
of  the  promised  trout,  roasted  chestnuts,  eggs  in 
an  omelet  supposed  to  be  fried,  and  thrushes  — 
those  thrushes  gorged  with  grapes  and  juniper 
which  are  the  autumn  luxury  of  this  ever- 
blessed  region  of  Italy. 

"  I  have  never  been  able  to  eat  a  single  one  of 
those  little  birds,"  said  the  father,  "they  fly  so 
near  to  me  here.  But  our  peasants  catch  them 
with  birdlime.  Have  n't  you  noticed  the  men 
and  boys  with  tame  owls.  They  lay  sticks 
covered  with  lime  round  the  vineyards.  Then 
they  put  an  owl  on  the  ground  fastened  to 
another  stick.  It  hops  about  here  and  there. 
The  birds  are  attracted  by  curiosity.  They  light 
on  the  sticks  and  are  caught.  I  am  surprised 
that  no  poet  has  ever  made  a  tale  of  that  little 
picture." 

Not  an  allusion  to  the  lost  coins,  not  a  word! 
Not  one  word  either  to  show  a  difference  in  his 
regard  towards  me  and  towards  my  companion  ; 
possibly  there  was  something  a  little  more 
caressing  in  his  manner  to  Philippe,  who,  I  saw 
plainly,  was  overcome  by  the  almost  affectionate 
kindness  of  the  man  he  had  so  basely  betrayed. 
A  score  of  times  I  saw  tears  at  the  rim  of  his 
eyelids ;    evidently    he     was    not   born  to  evil. 


80  PASTELS   OF   MEN. 

Twenty  times  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  to 
him,  "  Ask  pardon  of  this  saint,  and  make  an 
end  of  it."  But  instantly  as  the  moisture  came, 
lie  would  frown,  his  nostrils  contracted,  the  fire  of 
pride  would  quench  the  tears  within  his  lids,  and 
the  conversation  went  on,  or  rather,  I  should  say 
the  monologues  of  Dom  Griffi,  who  presently 
compared  his  beloved  Monte-Chiaro  with  Monte- 
Oliveto,  and  spoke  with  tenderness  of  a  friend 
of  his,  who   is   also  a  friend  of  mine,  the  dear 

Abbe'  de   N ,  who    had  undertaken   a  duty 

like  his  own.  Then  he  told  us  many  anecdotes 
about  the  convent,  some  of  them  very  interesting, 
—  one,  for  instance,  of  a  visit  of  the  Constable 
de  Bourbon  on  his  way  to  Eome,  when  he  se- 
cretly ordered  tire  prior  to  say  a  mass  for  his 
soul,  naming  the  day  which  did  actually  succeed 
his  death.  Other  tales  were  naive  and  childlike, 
and  related  mostly  to  local  legends.  It  was  not 
till  after  the  meal  was  over  and  we  had  returned 
to  our  sitting-room  that  I  fathomed  his  intention 
and  understood  the  idea  suggested  to  him  by  his 
knowledge  of  the  human  heart, — knowledge 
which  none  but  a  confessor  can  ever  really  ob- 
tain. Having  left  us  for  a  few  moments  he 
returned  with  Dom  Pio's  coffer  in  his  hand.  I 
glanced  at  Philippe.  He  had  turned  livid.  But 
the  wrinkled  face  of  the  monk  gave  no  sign  of 
stern  arraignment. 

"  You    have    taught   me   the   value   of   these 


A    SAINT.  81 

coins,"  be  said  simply,  as  he  placed  the  box  on 
the  table.  "  There  are  more  than  I  need  to 
repair  the  terrace.  Do  me  the  favor  to  select 
two  or  three  for  each  of  you,  and  keep  them  in 
memory  of  an  old  monk  who  prayed  for  you  both 
this  morning."     • 

He  looked  at  me  as  he  said  the  words  as  if  to 
remind  me  of  my  promise.  Then  he  left  the 
room,  and  Philippe  Dubois  and  I  remained  alone 
and  motionless.  I  trembled  lest  the  guilty  man 
should  guess  that  I  knew  his  secret.  The  divine 
mercy  of  Dom  Grirfi,  destined  to  produce  a  well- 
nigh  blasting  repentance  through  excessive  shame, 
could  only  have  its  full  effect  on  this  anguished 
soul  if  the  gall  of  wounded  self-love  were  not 
present. 

"  What  is  better  than  a  good  priest  ? "  I  said 
at  last,  merely  to  break  the  silence. 

Philippe  made  no  answer.  He  turned  hastily 
to  the  window  and  looked  at  the  green  prospect 
we  had  so  much  admired  on  our  arrival ;  he  was 
plunged  in  thought.  I  opened  the  coffer  and 
took  a  coin  at  random  to  obey  our  entertainer  ; 
then  I  went  into  my  bedroom.  My  heart  was 
beating  hard.  Presently  I  heard  the  young  man 
rush  away;  quick,  quick  rang  his  footsteps  in 
the  direction  of  the  monk's  cell.  His  pride  was 
conquered.  He  had  gone  to  return  the  stolen 
coins  and  confess  his  fault.  In  what  words 
he   addressed   the  father   he  had   so  insolently 

o 


82  PASTELS   OF    MEN. 

compared  to  the  late  Hyacinthe,  and  how  the 
latter  answered  him,  I  shall  never  know.  But 
when  we  were  once  more  in  the  carriage  and 
Pasquale  was  saying  to  his  mare,  "  Come,  Zara, 
show  your  legs."  I  turned  to  give  another 
glance  at  the  convent  we  were  leaving  and  to 
bow  to  the  abbe' ;  and  as  I  did  so  I  saw  in  the 
look  which  my  companion  was  casting  on  the 
simple  monk  the  dawn  of  another  soul.  No,  the 
era  of  miracles  is  not  over,  but  saints  are  needed, 
and  they  —  are  scarce. 


DATE  DUE 

GAYLORD 

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